Colliding Cultures: Career Switchers Transition to Elementary School Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze transition into elementary classrooms of students in a master of arts in teaching (MAT) program. Data sources included feedback, written observations and internship evaluations of students, informal conversations with mentoring teachers. and formal interviews with two mentors. One mentor worked with an intern who eased smoothly into the classroom. and the other mentor worked with two interns who experienced dissonirricf: within ltie classroom culture. The mental frameworks of professional culture that MAT i r i t t v r i r brought wilt) them from previous experiences served to facilitate creative teaching as well , i : , rriiise i-l discorinect between the MAT interns' expectations of and transition into the classroL F v l t v m textiers expressed beliefs that MAT interns were more mature and committed I(' t . . t ~ t i i r i r i t t i , t r i 1r;tdilional interns and were consequently expected to take on responsibilities I ' 1 1 1 1 ~ * v 3 tlil Iriti~rristiip Implications for programs working with career switchers are discussed ti\.c zcliool Ai5trict p;ith\vays to t c d i i n g lcavc \ v i th in thcir tirst 3 ycnrs, compirc~l to less than t mc%-t l i irJ ,)i ; i l l nc\v tciichcrs, inclding those prcpircJ thn )ugh trajiticmnl teacher cclucation progr:iii\. \ (Grximo, 2005). O t i r st;itc (FloriJa) is experiencing a prot o ~ i i i d teacher sh~irtagc, with up to 30,000 new tcachcrs nccdcd by the tall of 2006 and 20,000 teachers ii year thereafter for the foreseeable tuture ( Matus, 2005). Each year, thousands of new students enter the public schools in our ininieciiatc school district; in 2000-2001 alone, there were 5,600 new K-12 pupils (Ave, 2002). 7-t) address this concern, in the year 2000, professors in an clctiientary teacher education Address correspondence to Marv Lou Morlon University of South Florida EDU 162/4202 E Fowler Ave. Tampa, FL 33620, Phone (813) 974-1027 E-mail morlon@)lempesl coedu us1 edu 40 Action in Teuchrr Etlitsiitiirii Vol. 28. No 1 42 MARY LOU MORTON ET AL. The Need to Understand the Career Switcher These candidates came with widely disparate career backgrounds, such as accounting, social work, banking, graphic design, and music. Additionally, the age of the students varied from 19 years to over 50 years, with twothirds being 30 years or older. This profile is increasingly evident among career switchers in education (Murnane, Singer, Willet, Kempie, &I Olsen, 1991). Researchers have poin ted to the positive contributions of second-career teachers. Chambers (2002) rcports that characteristics such as ability to communicate effectively, capacity tc, multitask, a strong work ethic, and analytic thinking developed in previous experiences support transitions to teaching. Powell ( 1996) refers to these previous life experiences a s “mental frameworks” (p. 148) that secon& career teacher candidates use to unclcrstand the classroom culture. According to Powcll, mental frameworks include perceptions ot forinal education, the context prc\:ious occupitions, and familial experiences, which when combined reflect pcrscmil professional cultures. Previous experiences proiridc the career-switching tcachcr \vi th the intuiti\. c screens (Goodman, 1998) fcx sh;iring rcalworlJ applications of ccmcnt with s t i i h t z . As siich, Powcll (1996) writes thwt i t tcachcr educators understand these nicntal fr,iincworks, they can hcttcr facilitate the transition of career switchers into education. The fiaculty found that their MAT interns’ previous experiences sometimes provided healthy contributions to their involvement in the classroom, as Powell suggests; yet the mental frameworks of these students clashed at times with the expectations of mentor teachers and school routines. This phenomenon paralleled Cochran-Smith‘s ( 199 1 ) notions of consonance, critical dissonance, and collaborative resonance. I t is this potential collision of cultures during the interns’ transition into the classroom that captured our interest. MAT faculty were curious about the levels of disconnect between the culture of the classroom, the mentoring teacher’s expectations, and the mental frameworks of these career switchers.