“And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche,” Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in his ribald Canterbury Tales.
However, Chaucer might have been describing the students of Bakersfield College’s Future Teachers’ Club. They are willing to learn, and they are certainly willing to learn how to teach, according to club adviser and math professor Janet Tarjan.
According to Tarjan, the goal of the Future Teachers’ Club is to provide students with the opportunities to explore teaching as a career, and also provide opportunities for networking with local teachers and other prospective teachers.
The club has not only the BC chapter, but a Delano chapter as well.
The club also has close ties with the local chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, an international educators’ club eager to help spawn a legion of qualified and dynamic educators through their affiliation with enthusiastic, education-oriented students, Tarjan said.
“There’s a huge population of students who want to become teachers,” Tarjan said.
Tarjan anticipates that the club will be prodigious, but she wants to build a strong “core” group as well as a reliable and extensive communication network. Tarjan says the club is looking to develop its own Web site and newsletter.
“Everything depends on what the students want,” Tarjan said.
The club has invited members of the California Teachers’ Association, or CTA, to speak Oct. 13, according to Tarjan. Tarjan also said that the club is planning a potluck dinner to honor a few stellar educators in the community.
The club would like to visit a few college campuses, such as the University of California in San Diego. Last year, Tarjan said, the Bakersfield chapter of the club visited Cal State Northridge.
In the club’s recent past, it has worked with the Community of Learning and Integrated Practice or CLIP, which seeks to strengthen future teacher preparation as well as the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges or AMATYC.
Tarjan said the club is looking forward to attending future math conferences hosted by AMATYC as well as the California Mathematics Council or CMC. The club, Tarjan said, wishes to invite students of all disciplines to attend future meetings, especially the upcoming meeting featuring CTA.
All majors ranging from psychology to child development, liberal studies, and other majors are welcome, Tarjan said. Meetings are held in the back of the cafeteria, Thursdays at 3 p.m.
Sarah Montgomery, president of the club and a student teacher, believes the club will prepare students for upper division education courses as well as preparing students for the “real world” of teaching after they earn bachelor degrees.
Montgomery believes that one aspect of the “real world” that future educators must be wary of is the political arena and the agenda of politicians; the propositions of the upcoming election concerns not only teachers but students as well.
“Nothing ever just affects teachers, ” Montgomery said. “If something affects teachers, it will affect students.”