Vicky Smith
Managing Editor
@pinkwritinglady
Cameron University’s “CU Become a Teacher” workshop series began at 3:45 p.m. on Nov. 16 in room 1023 of Nance Boyer.
Participants received a free dinner and free childcare (for ages 3+) for the duration of the 90-minute workshops. Furthermore, the first ten people who registered and who also complete all six workshops will receive a $200 stipend.
Dean of the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences Department Dr. Lisa Huffman and Chair of the Education Department Dr. Jennifer Dennis coordinated the event.
Huffman said the workshops will continue until Dec. 6 and will be open to paraprofessionals.
According to Google, a paraprofessional is “a person to whom a particular aspect of a professional task is delegated but who is not licensed to practice as a fully qualified professional.”
Huffman said paraprofessionals are like teaching assistants, and those eligible for the workshops may or may not have completed a college degree.
“‘CU Become a Teacher’ is designed to help those people that are teaching assistants, working in the schools already, become teachers in special education, elementary education, or early childhood education,” Huffman said. “Those are the areas identified by the state.”
Huffman said a goal of the workshop series is to minimize the teacher shortage in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Teacher Connection Grant from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education made the series possible.
“In Oklahoma,” Huffman said, “we have over a thousand open teacher positions, so we’re trying to get people to go into the teaching profession.
“The paraprofessional grant is really nice because they’re already working in the schools. They care about the schools. … The idea is to create a pipeline; they come to us for a little while, and we give them back to the district.”
According to Huffman, those who participated in the workshop are from all over the Southwest Oklahoma region, including Lawton, Cache, Elgin, Walters, Fletcher and Sterling.
Huffman said at the workshops, participants learned about different pathways to become a teacher, ideal ways to balance college with family and work, study strategies and reasons to become a teacher.
“There’s real benefits to becoming a teacher,” Huffman said. “They have great retirement. They have great health insurance, but for me, it’s directly impacting that child’s life.
“Every person knows that teacher that positively impacted their life. … I think that’s a real calling, and people who are already working in the schools probably have that calling already.”
Huffman said although teaching is a great profession, the teacher shortage in Oklahoma is large.
“If you go to the Oklahoma State Regents website,” she said, “there’s a link to the supply-and-demand study that they just put out for the whole state of Oklahoma.
“The state has approved over 600 emergency certifications for teachers this year – just since July. That means you’re not licensed in that area, but you can teach.”
According to Huffman, there are multiple reasons why people may choose to not pursue a career in teaching.
“The salary is low,” she said. “Superintendent [Joy] Hofmeister has a great graphic out. … She talks about if you become a manager in training at a Chipotle restaurant, you would make more in the training program than you would as a teacher in Oklahoma – a starting teacher.”
In the Tulsa World article published in February, Hofmeister said, “In just three to four years, someone [at Chipotle] who starts out at minimum could be at apprentice level, and I was stunned to learn they would make more than a teacher with a Ph.D and 25 years of experience.”
Huffman said another reason people may choose to not teach is because of the emphasis on student test requirements.
“You hear about testing and the pressures of testing that’s taken over instead of being a teacher,” she said. “You’re often working on getting your kids ready for a test.”
Huffman hopes the workshop series will demonstrate to people that teaching is a valuable profession to pursue.
“[For] all those and some other reasons,” Huffman said, “[people] don’t necessarily see becoming a teacher as a thing they want to do. We need to change that perception because it’s a really great job.
“You impact people’s lives, and every single person knows a teacher that was that teacher for them. Wouldn’t you want to be that person for somebody else?”
