Literate teachers who are active and reflective learners serve as excellent role models for their students. Teachers who understand what it takes to learn and reflect actively are better able to produce students who are active and reflective learners. Although these principles underpin the preparation of professional teachers here at Southeast, we also believe strongly that they are not sufficient for achieving the goal of producing professional teachers - it is only under the actual conditions of teaching that one can become a competent, caring, reflective education professional. Prospective teachers thus ought to have experience with progressively more complex teaching situations, from aiding a teacher to having full responsibility for a classroom of students, as an integral part of their undergraduate teacher education program. Southeast recognizes that increasingly most teachers will have more than one degree.
Every effort is made to influence the professional teacher to be a continuous learner.
Graduate teacher education seeks to assist graduate students in education further their knowledge and understanding of the art of teaching, of the subjects that they teach, of the nature of curriculum and pedagogy, of the learner and human development and of the place of school as an institution in the life of our society. In addition to forming the foundation of the teacher education programs at Southeast, the principles of competent, caring, reflective, and professional teaching also underlie the graduate programs in Educational Administration and Counseling. The knowledge and understanding of teaching that comes from adhering to these principles constitutes an intellectual milieu for clearly comprehending the problems of school administration and counseling. It is the habit of active and reflective learning, moreover, that enables these professional educators to deal effectively with the principles of teaching as well as with the fundamental principles of each of these professional educational programs. A competent, professional school administrator is an educational leader skilled in the arts of leadership, management, and policy development.