BSU Student Teachers Get Great Local Experience Outside The University.



By: Karl Mandik

When the Ball brothers first founded Ball State University the school was originally intended to be a private teachers college. A monument in East-Central Indiana to molding and shaping scholars to become excellent leaders and teachers once they left Muncie.





The University still stands as a nationally accredited university to instructing future teachers in every subject that can be taught. Ball State uses the student-teacher program to help future teachers learn real world tools to teaching outside of the classroom. "We are very happy to have student-teachers from Ball State, because of the experience and dedication they bring. We welcome them with open arms" says Lon Sloan principle of South View elementary school in Muncie. "I interview all the Ball State student teachers that come into South View and I always come away impressed" said Sloan, a Ball State graduate of the Teachers College.





Lon Sloan has been principle for the past 3 years at South View and has had to deal with an important topic that Muncie community schools in general have had to battle with, poverty. Approximately 78% of students that attend South View elementary are on free or reduced lunch programs. Students can also be offered a free breakfast but must arrive before school starts to receive it. In addition, in grades 3rd through 5th students that receive free or reduced lunches they perform worse on the ISTEP in both categories of Language Arts and Math. The ISTEP is a test distributed to all Indiana elementary school's testing all students in English (Language Art's) and Math.





"I feel like it helped me greatly working with students who struggled coming from a poverty stricken home life" says Ball State Teachers College graduate Jill Scully. Scully worked at Wilson middle school which takes in kids from South View elementary, Grissom elementary, and Longfellow elementary schools. Grissom also struggles with children from poverty stricken homes, with 635 of their 919 students on free or reduced priced lunches. "I really learned a whole new side of teaching, it teaches you to be more understanding of their home life and what they have to go through outside of the classroom" said Scully a Valparaiso native who is looking for a teaching job in the area of math in Florida. Also other student teachers from Ball State have seen first hand how the student teaching position can help prepare them for the outside world, "I felt like I was really given all the tools to succeed when I taught at Grissom" says Ball State junior Nicole Tackett who is double majoring in Elementary Education and Special Education. Tackett an Indianapolis native participated as a practicum student at Grissom elementary spring of 2005.





The student-teacher program at Ball State will continue to send as many future instructors to Muncie Community Schools as they can. "We just want to give the student-teachers all the tools they need to succeed and help our students learn in a better environment" added Sloan. Both Scully and Tackett concluded that the program and facilities helped them become better teachers. "To have student-teachers that can work with students that are in poverty is an important life lesson that all can benefit from" concluded Sloan.