About Us
Students preparing for the difficult work of teaching in urban schools need to come to the experience equipped with a variety of tools. They need to be familiar with the historical and cultural knowledge about schools and communities that has been generated by our best scholars and researchers. Through their clinical experiences they need to observe and practice the best of what we know about effective teaching and learning. At the same time, they need the opportunity to engage with the deeper emotional roots of the mission they have undertaken, to stay connected to the strong convictions that brought them to choose this work, to be inspired by others who have gone before them into this difficult and profoundly important terrain, and to retain and reinforce the passionate commitment to social justice that will help them stay the course when the difficulties seem insurmountable. Chicago UTEP was created to prepare its students to become successful teachers, and eventually successful teacher leaders, in challenging urban schools. The program represents a vision of pre-service education that is situated both academically and experientially in the complexities of the Chicago Public Schools. Towards that end, the goal of Chicago UTEP is to develop reflective teachers who:
u engage in teaching as a highly intellectual profession, requiring the application of strong observation and analytic skills and technology as tools to support student learning;
u possess strong content-area knowledge and pedagogy, particularly in the areas of literacy and mathematics, to support the delivery of effective, child-centered practice;
u nurture respectful classroom communities by attending to the affective, moral development of children;
u promote the values of professional community and collaborative problem solving in their schools by making their practice “public” and subject to critical feedback and reflection;
u become agents of professional and social change by openly attending to issues of race, class, culture, and educational equity; and
u participate in professional development beyond their pre-service years, beginning with induction programming.