GSE Preps Penn Undergrads for the Classroom

“I am driven to make a difference in the urban education field,” says Zohra Omar C’07. A Pakistani citizen, Omar grew up a long way away from urban America. But her hometown of Karachi suffers from the same ills that haunt so many cities worldwide: “high levels of poverty and a miserable public education system,” as Omar explains.

Penn GSE’s new 9th Semester Scholar program has been designed with students like Omar in mind—bright, enthusiastic people committed to improving the world around them.

Working in collaboration with the School of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Community Partnerships (CCP), and West Philadelphia public schools, GSE has developed a program that enables Urban Education minors to get classroom experience in urban schools—and to get their teacher certification—simply by enrolling in an additional, ninth semester.

Introduced in 2005, the Urban Education minor is itself an interdisciplinary effort. Sponsored by GSE, CCP, and the Urban Studies program, it offers three concentrations, two of which—Elementary Education and Secondary Education—are for undergraduates explicitly interested in teaching. (The third strand—Urban Education Policy, Research, and Practice—may lead into work in a variety of policy and practice areas or submatriculation into GSE’s one-year Master’s in Education degree program.)

According to NancyLee Bergey CW’75 GEd’79, who oversees the program, the great advantage of Penn’s approach is that it produces teachers with strong subject-matter knowledge and a thorough grounding in pedagogy. “Teachers need to have a strong content background, but they also need to understand how children learn,” Bergey explains. “All of our students have declared an academic major—they might be English majors or foreign language majors. What we’re giving them is an opportunity to think about learning and teaching.”

Throughout the Urban Ed minor program, students get small classroom placements in their coursework, giving them invaluable preparation for the 9th Semester student teaching assignments required for full certification. Says Omar, “Student teaching will be my first experience with the same group of students for half the year, and the first time I will be teaching a whole class. Very exciting and challenging.”

In addition to their fieldwork, these students hit the books in a variety of academic classes—methods-of-teaching courses, theory classes, and academically based community service (ABCS) courses. (Offered through CCP, ABCS courses encompass problem-oriented research and service learning centered in West Philadelphia.)

With the cost of a credit unit topping $4,000, an additional semester at Penn can represent a serious financial burden, particularly to someone pursuing a career in urban education. To help reduce the tuition burden, some generous Penn alumni are providing support. Jay Fishman W’74 WG’74 and Randy Chapman Fishman are giving $500,000 to create the Fishman Family Endowed 9th Semester Scholar Fund, and Dennis “Chip” Brady C’94 W’94 and Allison Weiss Brady C’93 are directing $125,000 to establish the Chip Brady and Allison Weiss Brady 9th Semester Scholar Fund. Both funds will provide financial support to Penn undergraduates who wish to complete their 9th semester and teach in urban public schools.

As for Zohra Omar, she hopes to teach when she graduates, eventually settling in the developing world. “There are so many problems and obstacles, so few resources, but at the same time, so much potential and so much to be done.”

For more information on Penn GSE’s 9th Semester Scholars program, contact Jill DiSanto-Haines.