Faculty Handbook

For one hundred years, Bank Street College of Education has been a leader in child-centered education. Bank Street’s mission is to discover the environments in which children grow and learn to their full potential, and to educate teachers, leaders and other professionals to create these environments.

Founded in 1916 as the Bureau of Educational Experiments, the College’s Graduate School was chartered by the Board of Regents in 1950 to confer the degree of Master of Science in Education. Long recognized as a leader in early childhood and elementary education, the College’s programs and professionals have pioneered improvement in the quality of classroom education and the use of state-of-the-art technology. The knowledge of and respect for people of all socio-economic, racial, and ethnic groups, and the value of cultural and linguistic diversity are basic tenets that are included in all of its courses and programs.

Since its inception, the College has been renowned among institutions of teacher preparation, with collaborative learning and personal and professional advisement central to all Graduate School programs. It has consistently applied a learner-centered approach to the education of both children and adults. Committed to public education, Bank Street has had an important impact upon the New York City public school system, with over 60 years of onsite collaboration. On a national level, Bank Street College has profoundly influenced American education, from its participation in the design of Head Start and Follow Through and work with the Federal government to design the Civil Rights Act of 1965, to its current involvement with public school systems throughout the country.

The Graduate School at Bank Street has a long-established national reputation as a beacon of progressive education. Graduate faculty members share the belief that the social and educational issues affecting children and youth deserve highest priority. These convictions are equally evident in every program-specific option we offer, and in our ongoing efforts to assess and improve the work we do.

“What potentialities in human beings—children, teachers, and ourselves—do we want to see develop?

• A zest for living that comes from taking in the world with all five senses alert.
• Lively intellectual curiosities that turn the world into an exciting laboratory and keep one ever a learner.
• Flexibility when confronted with change and ability to relinquish patterns that no longer fit the present.
• The courage to work, unafraid and efficiently, in a world of new needs, new problems, and new ideas.
• Gentleness combined with justice in passing judgments on other human beings.
• Sensitivity, not only to the external formal rights of the “other fellow,” but to him as another human being seeking a good life through his own standards.
• A striving to live democratically, in and out of schools, as the best way to advance our concept of democracy.

Our credo demands ethical standards as well as scientific attitudes. Our work is based on the faith that human beings can improve the society they have created.”

Mitchell, L. S. (1953). Two Lives: The Story of Wesley Clair Mitchell and Myself. United States: Simon and Schuster. Retrieved from https://www.bankstreet.edu/about-bank-street/mission-credo/

While we could identify five separate principles and accompanying habits of mind that are the key to our candidate assessment plan from admissions through graduation, it is important to note that these principles and habits are, by their nature, integrated. Each of these recurs across our courses, and all of them are certainly woven together in Supervised Fieldwork/Advisement. In some specific courses and assessments, however, one or more may emerge as figure while the others serve as ground. It is in this spirit that we next describe their enactment in our graduate programs.

1.) Education is a moral undertaking. Our educational aims require, as stated by Lucy Sprague Mitchell in the (1916) Credo, “the courage to work, unafraid and efficiently, in a world of new needs, new problems, and new ideas” and “a striving to live democratically, in and out of schools, as the best way to advance our concept of democracy. Our work is based on the faith that human beings can improve the society they have created.”

This principle is reflected in the courses that ask educators and prospective educators to think closely and carefully about the ideas and practices they encounter in the schools and other environments in which they practice, and to develop the habit of advocacy. It is at the heart of foundations courses, which consider the contexts (educational, historical, cultural, economic, moral, and political) in which children, teachers and families are expected to interact, and the implications in each of these contexts of the choices that teachers and schools make. It asks us to consider the questions of power and access that create obstacles to equitable and high-quality education for all children. It also includes courses that help teachers and other educational professionals understand and interact with the complex diversity of culture, language, ability, experience and assumption that make up the school communities they will serve.

This principle is reflected as well in the technology infusion we have set upon. We expect teachers and leaders to learn about the rapidly developing technological innovations available to schools and families, and to plan for their use in a responsible way. Such responsible use would include furthering democratic school communities that better include learners diverse in background, resources, and access to new ideas. It would also include a charge to help children and teachers become better able to assess critically the flood of information and ideas becoming available through the prevalence of new technologies.

2.) Educational practice should be informed by a rigorous method of observing children, adolescents and adults, as well as recording and analyzing data. While engaged in this process, the educator acknowledges and is sensitive to individual and cultural variations in development. The knowledge and understanding gained are essential to the on going planning and construction of curriculum, in the classroom and beyond.

This principle is reflected in the courses that develop students’ knowledge base of human development and its variations, and help them to revise and refine their understanding of children’s development through careful observation of children in a variety of activities and contexts. The courses also enlarge the habit of inquiry, embracing the ability of graduate students to see each child through multiple lenses, and to continually examine and challenge their own assumptions about individual children as well as groups of children and families. It is also reflected in research courses and in the “content” courses that develop teachers’ abilities to plan curriculum and instruction based on direct and careful observation of children and assessment of their needs, as well as on general principles of development and learning.

3.) The dynamic relationships of people in interaction with their environments serve as the centerpiece of the curriculum. Through the multiple perspectives of social studies, opportunities are offered to question and to understand the complex relationships, aspirations, and struggles of people (both near and far and past and present) in their social and physical worlds. Varied opportunities are consistently offered to learn from direct experience, as well as the offering of diverse materials with which human beings may give form to and express their thoughts and feelings.

This principle is reflected in the courses focusing on curriculum and environments, including social studies, science, mathematics, arts, children’s literature, language and literacy development, and pedagogy which emphasizes the habit of connection, the ability to find relationships among the perspectives and the ideas embodied in each discipline, as well as to seek relationships across disciplines and across customary boundaries of time, space, and custom. It is also reflected through the encouragement of the ability to find connection between the theoretical perspectives encountered in the course of study and the candidate’s own personal experience.

4.) Developing and maintaining a sense of community within the educational setting is essential to experiencing the worth and meaning of a democratic society. Collaboration, caring, fairness, respect, responsibility, and a shared common purpose create the atmosphere in which both children and adults have opportunities to grow and develop as social individuals committed to the realization of a just society.

This principle is reflected in the courses in which graduate students learn about group interactions and processes for making them more effective, inclusive and socially responsible. Such courses may focus on relationships among children, between children and adults, or among adults in various roles. They also embrace small group processes, classroom management and environments, school organizations and structures, and larger societal interactions, anywhere the habit of collaboration can further the development of democratic communities.

5.) The world outside of the school is brought daily into the classroom/school through the lives and experiences of students, teachers and leaders. As these worlds intersect, the task of the educator is: to surface and identify issues that contribute to and obstruct democratic life; to create an environment in which questioning, communication, and active participation are essential to learning; to support the perspectives of both artist and scientist; and to encourage reflection, imagination, and the expansion of possibilities.

This principle is reflected in courses that help educators learn collaborative ways of working and communicating with families and communities. It is a major part of the curriculum, arts, language and literacy courses that focus on supporting children’s ability to explore and “read the world,” to talk, read, write, and wonder about their experiences, to ask questions that matter, to communicate their ideas to a broad range of people, and to engage in the habit of reflection.

These principles are integrated during Supervised Fieldwork/Advisement as graduate students, along with their advisor, their cooperating teachers or other field mentors (where applicable) and their colleagues in conference group, reflect (individually and together) on how and where the principles are being enacted in the student’s practice. Together, the student and advisor develop a plan to further the student’s professional growth through a careful study of his/her goals, evolving areas of focus for growth, and the needs of the children, families and colleagues in the contexts in which the student works. A copy of the Principles and Habits of Mind is given to all graduate students during the supervised fieldwork orientation.

Teaching, learning and leadership at Bank Street is guided by the developmental-interaction approach, an enduring pedagogy rooted in developmental psychology and progressive education. It is named for its two key features: human development and interaction with the world of people, materials, and ideas. Although developmental-interaction is often regarded as an approach to the education of children, its educational and psychological principles also apply to the needs and capacities of adult learners. Rooted in the belief that education provides an opportunity to create a more equitable society, this approach emphasizes social justice and building democratic community. The approach informs rather than prescribes practice; there is no single way to teach.

As an advocate for children, the teacher studies how children learn and grow and strives to understand the communities in which they live. The teacher uses this knowledge to construct with the children a classroom community that promotes each child’s cognitive, linguistic, affective, social, and physical development. The teacher brings knowledge, ethics, creativity, discipline, and flexibility to his or her work and endeavors to nurture these qualities in children. School is a major part of children’s lives and should provide equitable opportunities for children not only to build knowledge and skills but also to experience pleasure and enjoy learning and developing competence. The classroom provides a context for becoming a member of a community, learning to respect others, and resolving conflicts in positive ways. Connecting learners’ lives to the curriculum, the school community, and the larger world is an enduring goal of the developmental-interaction approach.

For a fuller discussion, see Nager, N. & Shapiro, E.K. (Eds.) (2000). Revisiting a Progressive Pedagogy: The Developmental-Interaction Approach. New York: SUNY Press.

When teaching teachers and future educators, a learner-centered approach remains at the core for faculty, although it certainly has particular meaning for each of us. In addition, faculty strive toward helping students create a framework of knowing children “from the inside out” which requires careful and non-judgmental observations of children in the context of their daily lives, balanced with access to theories that they may explore for meaningful use in their work.

Teaching by example is a stellar goal in life and certainly when education about teaching and learning is the primary task. The developmental-interaction approach is not just a lens with which to view children, it also serves as a foundation for the conceptual framework for our teaching, as well as our professional development. This framework is strongly rooted in the importance of faculty as models of good practice, promotes the value of discourse and primary resources, and gives voice to those not always heard.