Education Department<\/a>. The Class of 2014 includes 25 elementary education majors, 10 students certifying in secondary education and languages, and 12 music education majors. The Class of 2015 is comprised of 23 elementary education majors, six students certifying in secondary education and languages, and 10 music education majors.<\/p>\nAfter hearing her mom\u2019s stories of everyday life in the classroom, Taylor Outen \u201914, had almost decided that teaching wasn\u2019t for her. But after taking an introductory education course, Outen said she fell in love.<\/p>\n
As a rising senior, she participated in the Early Experience program as a \u201cco-teacher\u201d in a fifth grade classroom at Greenbrier Elementary School in Greenville County during the first three to four weeks of the K-12 school year. She also presented with Dr. George Lipscomb at the South Carolina Council for the Social Studies conference in September in Charleston.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough Early Experience, I got to see the hardest and most important part of school \u2013 before students arrive. The classroom setup, meetings with the principal, grade level meetings, and decisions about the minute-to-minute things that happen in the classroom all determine how your year will go before you even get students in the classroom,\u201d said Outen. \u201cSeeing everything that goes into starting off the school year has given me the upper hand in preparing to teach students of my own next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she first entered Furman\u2019s program, Outen thought she\u2019d like to become a media specialist. \u201cAfter being in the classrooms and meeting students and learning how to teach them, I have abandoned that idea for what I now feel is my calling \u2013 teaching,\u201d said Outen, who is planning to pursue her master\u2019s degree in literacy.<\/p>\n
Furman\u2019s program of teacher education presents teacher candidates with many opportunities to observe and connect with children and youth as they learn. Like undergraduate students in most traditional colleges and universities, Furman teacher candidates graduate at the end of four years. Unlike their counterparts, they return in the fall semester after graduation to complete a student teaching internship.<\/p>\n
\u201cGraduates of Furman\u2019s teacher education program have more time to enroll in content courses and more time to teach under the guidance of master practitioners and university mentors,\u201d said education professor and department chair Nelly Hecker. \u201cWe strive to help our students become effective practitioners and decision-makers who thrive in a school environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed elementary school teachers to be one of the professions with the largest projected employment growth from 2010 to 2020. The number of elementary school teaching positions, excluding special education, is projected to grow from 1,476,500 to 1,725,300, an increase of 16.8 percent.<\/p>\n
In January 2013, Furman University surveyed 17 school principals and district administrators regarding the success of its teacher education program. They responded overwhelmingly regarding the success of Furman teacher candidates in more than 30 different areas, such as how well they knew their subjects and state standards, how well they managed their classrooms and how well they worked with children, parents and colleagues.<\/p>\n
Chris Phillips, principal of Welcome Elementary School in Greenville, makes it a habit to look for Furman graduates when she\u2019s reviewing resumes. She is quick to involve Furman students and new graduates in the school culture, making them part of faculty meetings and activities with the hope that they will make Welcome their home for years to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not coming in with rose-colored glasses. They\u2019re go-getters — mature, hard-working and show initiative,\u201d said Phillips, who has worked as a teacher and administrator for two decades. \u201cFurman prepares their students as quality educators.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of Bernard Frost\u2019s former students recently came to visit him before boarding a plane to go to Stanford University, where he received a full scholarship. \u201cHe wanted to come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":12980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,34,3,63,28,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-admission","category-alumni","category-career-services","category-education","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>Though Frost has only been teaching since 2005, that student\u2019s story is already one of many. Frost recently earned his doctorate of education in administrator leadership for teaching and learning from Walden University. He is now an educational consultant for Union County Schools and received the Middle School Magic Award from the South Carolina Middle School Association as a teacher who presents inspirational lessons to students daily.<\/p>\n