“I Want to See Some Kind of Growth out of Them”: What the Service Ethic Means to Teacher-Education Students

Abstract

The crisis in teacher recruitment has focused attention on the public service ethic of teacher-education students. After reviewing existing conceptions of teacher service, we report findings from a multimethod study of more than 400 candidates for secondary education certification. Survey results show service aims to be potent factors attracting traditional college-age students to teaching, though somewhat less evident among nontraditional students. Interview data suggest that subjects interpret the service ethic chiefly in terms of promoting pupils’ academic and personal development—a relatively new idea best understood in the context of professionalization campaigns in education and other human service fields. However, students’ eagerness to assert teachers’ responsibility was seldom accompanied by serious thought on measurement of teaching outcomes. One challenge will be to encourage students to participate in ongoing discussions of teacher accountability and assessment without dampening the service ideals that have initially drawn them to teaching.