A Letter to the VA Dept. of Ed. in Support of Continued Development of Reflective, Thoughtful and Professional Teachers

The Virginia Department of Education has proposed to eliminate Foundations of Education requirements from their teacher licensure regulations. Foundations of Education has been a requirement in Virginia for at least the last 30 years and as of this date, no rationale for the change has been offered.

We the undersigned believe that coursework in Foundations of Education provides a unique and critically important component of teacher education, bringing perspective and meaning to the task of teaching and fostering consideration of the role of public schools in our democracy. Study in Foundations of Education plays a key role in the development of reflective, thoroughly professional, and ultimately effective teachers for the Commonwealth.

By its very nature teaching is an extraordinarily engaging practice requiring constant attention to tasks immediately at hand. Foundations of Education places day-to-day classroom practice within wider contexts, providing time and space for consideration of such activities in light of the overall aims of education; such as education's role in supporting freedom of thought, social fairness, care for others, and democratic self-government, to name a few. Historically, Virginia has served as a point of origin for many of the realizations of the crucial role education plays in our democratic society and Foundations of Education study serves to help Virginias teachers continue to understand, appreciate, and maintain these connections.

Teaching is also a fundamentally human enterprise that cannot and should not be entirely prescribed and codified. While it is important that teachers learn effective methods and techniques, an understanding of broad educational goals and contexts in which their students and classrooms exist is necessary for teachers to respond effectively to particular situations. In other words, Foundations of Educations focus on the whys of educationfrom societal goals to cultural and social trends affecting all aspects of educationare critical to effective implementation of the hows of classroom practice.

We, the undersigned, hereby petition the Virginia Department of Education to continue to equip Virginias teachers not only with the practical methods and techniques to be successful, but also to encourage the development of the frameworks to understand how, when, and why to apply those tools in light of the broader contexts of education. Foundations of Education studies explicitly facilitate the development of such frameworks. We request that the Virginia Department of Education withdraw the proposal to eliminate Foundations of Education from teacher licensure regulations.