For teachers this is the time to enjoy the summer break to travel, stay home with their own children or just take a vacation. But for the majority there is something called professional development. Summer is the usual time when teachers go back to school to hone their skills, learn more about their subject area, work for advanced degrees or pick up some new practices for that high tech equipment sitting in the classroom. Like many other professionals who want to advance their careers and keep up with new ideas and practices, teachers also take courses during the school year after school and into the evening.
Good school districts encourage their teachers to pursue this further education. Beyond what the union contract mandates in this area, there are ways to help teachers improve themselves to become better teachers and be recognized as professionals. Coventry started it for their teachers, but now the state, for example, pays the $2,000 application fee for teachers who pay the additional $300 to start on the rigorous one year process to obtain National Board Certification. And teachers are snapping up the opportunity. Only 37 teachers in the state are currently Board Certified with a lengthy waiting list that now requires a lottery system to get this state money.
The National Geographic Society is also providing similar opportunities for Rhode Island teachers of the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance. From a nationwide pool of 15,000 teacher consultants, i.e. trained at NGS headquarters in Washington or in their respective states, only 20 have been selected to attend a four-day, all expenses paid seminar this summer at the Geographic. Two of our Rhode Island teacher consultants have been selected for this experience.
These two Rhode Island teacher consultants are just a few of the more than 30 Rhode Island TCs who will be learning more geography this year as part of this nationwide effort by the Geographic to improve the teaching of geography in schools in which they have invested over $20 million. Our own Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance now 10 years with this NGS program, has received over $300,000 of funding from them, together with over $200,000 worth of teaching materials, which has generated an additional $250,000 of state, private and foundation support.
One of the major goals of this National Geographic initiative is to provide TCs with more geography content which they can pass on to other teachers and students. And this it does by emphasizing professional development opportunities through workshops, study at universities, research and travel. A good example of this is what happens with our Rhode Island teacher consultants.
Chester E. Smolski is a Professor Emeritus of Geography at Rhode Island College.
