Vision Statement
We strive to create a model of teacher education that is grounded in universal design for learning, asset-based, emancipatory, culturally sustaining, anti-racist, and trauma-informed pedagogies.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Teacher Education Department is to develop educators who are knowledgeable, reflective, and committed to creating learning environments that promote inclusion and diversity in the New York City school system and beyond. Our programs prepare graduates to enter the teaching profession or continue their journey in a variety of educational contexts and related workforces.
Values Statement
As scholar-activists, we value diversity, asset-based pedagogies, creativity, social justice, equity, decolonization, and liberation. Relationships with children, families, colleagues, and diverse communities are also at the core of our practice. Being in a strategic urban area, we seize every opportunity to build strong partnerships with other higher education institutions, corporate entities, and multiple stakeholders to help us achieve our vision and mission.
Goals Statement
We believe that our graduates, as future educators, are poised to make impactful changes in society. By modeling a culture of care, promoting asset-based pedagogies, and ensuring student learning outcomes in our teacher education programs, we aim to:
- Prepare pre-service teachers whose practices are shaped by an understanding of the biological and socio-cultural contexts within which each child grows and learns while applying strategies susceptible to achieving optimal results for children, families, and colleagues.
- Cultivate educators who value the cultural funds of knowledge, diverse abilities, lived experiences, and different perspectives that students and their families bring to the classroom, including social and emotional skills in learning, teaching, and interactions with others.
- Provide a springboard for developing future teacher-activists who will advocate for educational and social policies that will benefit students and families locally and globally.
- Direct students’ attention to persistent inequities and encourage them to support those populations who are most vulnerable and/or underrepresented within the field of education, including male teachers, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) students and families, gender non-conforming people, students and families living in poverty, undocumented immigrants, neuro-divergent people, people with disabilities, among many others.
- Prepare pre-service teachers to understand their subject matter, learners and learning, and curriculum and teaching through the creation and implementation of focused-themed activity plans that specifically embed all developmental domains and foster achievement in young learners.
- Develop pre-service teachers who will continue to apply research-based practice and become lifelong learners. We encourage and support our students to actively engage in their professional growth as educators.
- To prepare pre-service teachers to self-reflect in their practices and expand their communication and collaborative skills in the field.
.
