Earlier this week, The 74 released an article focused on how the traditional public school system is using apprenticeships to redesign teacher preparation.
Reporter Asher Lehrer-Small begins by writing,
“Wyoming is vast and sparsely populated. Its only public four-year university is located in Laramie, in the southeast corner of the sharply rectangular state. Those factors can make educator training complicated, explained Laurel Ballard, director of innovation and digital learning at the Wyoming Department of Education. Would-be teachers often are turned off from the profession because of the cost or commuting required for training programs.”
“’All of our districts are struggling with finding teachers and counselor,’ she said.”
“Now, to combat the problem, her state is rolling out a program designed to eliminate key barriers to becoming an educator – and doing so with the help of a network of more than a dozen other states at the vanguard of what many consider a revolution in teacher preparation.”
“Wyoming and its peers in the National Registered Apprenticeship in Teaching Network are applying a decades-old, on-the-job training model long associated with trades like plumbing or welding to educator preparation. They say the technique has the potential to make becoming a teacher more affordable and hands-on.”
“’I think it’s going to change the face of what teacher prep looks like,’ Ballard said. ‘We’ve seen [apprenticeships] work really well in other industries. So I don’t know why education would be any different.’”
“The strategy is brand shiny new. Though the federal government has run a skilled apprenticeship program for 85 years, teaching was only added to the list of approved professions in 2021.”
“But rather than attempt to navigate uncharted turf on their own, officials from 14 states and counting have banded together to share tips and tricks from the field. The network launched in August and is led by David Donaldson, one of the architects behind Tennessee’s teacher apprenticeship program, which was the nation’s first federally approved model.”
“’The group’s made up of the implementers, the people who actually get things done,’ Donaldson said. ‘Everybody is learning from one another. I hope people avoid the mistakes I’ve made [in Tennessee] because I’ve made plenty. We say we want people to start at second base, not home plate.’”
“The U.S. Department of Labor currently recognizes the teacher apprenticeship programs of 16 states, including 10 that participate in Donaldson’s network: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Several other states in the network are in the process of applying for state or federal approval.”
The 74 article makes it sound like teacher apprenticeship programs are something new. If you figure apprenticeships are similar to teacher residencies, then these types of support systems have been around at least 20 years.
The National Center for Teacher Residencies, founded by Chicagoan Anissa Listak, still offers a residency model that blends a rigorous full-year classroom apprenticeship for pre-service teachers with academic coursework that is closely aligned with the classroom experience. Teacher residents learn how to teach by working for an entire year alongside a highly trained, supported mentor teacher in the school district where the resident will eventually work. These teacher residencies typically require that candidates commit to teach in the school for a minimum of three years.
There’s no doubt that apprenticeships and residencies, call them what you want, are a good strategy when it comes to attracting young people to the classroom.
The problem with both is that we are training young people to do nothing of what is needed by adult learning leaders interested in supporting learner-based work. Whether it be an apprenticeship or a residency, if we are training adults to “teach” and not be a “learning leader”, then we aren’t preparing young adults for what is needed when it comes to assisting young learners with their own personalized learning plan.
Where are the training sites interested in helping adult learning leaders define, plan, execute, and evaluate a group of young learners’ progress to become self-identified learners?
If we are really serious about a new system of learning taking the place of the traditional system we now have, then we need to start identifying and training a new cadre of learning coaches, ones that are well-versed in helping their young learners create robust learning plans, including definitions, planning documents, execution strategies, and evaluation practices that support the young learner and their efforts to become life-long learners.
That talent is around. All we need to do is create a space whereby that talent is able to practice their skills to become the learning coaches for the new system of learning.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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