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LEARNING &Amp; EDUCATION; Program Clears Way for Midlife Move to Teaching

Posted on: Sunday, 15 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By MEGAN TWOHEY

Robin Kroyer-Kubicek had been working at the Blood Center of Wisconsin for 10 years, doing lab testing, regulatory oversight and other jobs, when she decided, in 1999, to change careers.

She had just finished training the center's employees. The task had left her with a sense of accomplishment missing from much of her work.

"I realized that got me really excited, training the staff," recalled Kroyer-Kubicek, 41.

As a child, Kroyer-Kubicek had dreamed of becoming a teacher. The training inspired her to quit her job at 35 and enroll in a post- baccalaureate teaching certification program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Each year, nearly 400 people enroll in the teaching program at the university's School of Education. Like Kroyer-Kubicek, most are women, in their 30s or early 40s, who are interested in starting a second career. Others are stay-at-home mothers who want to get into the work force, said Robert Longwell-Grice, the School of Education's director of academic services.

What makes the program attractive, Longwell-Grice said, is that it takes only one or two years to complete, depending on the student's experience. That's compared to the four years of work required at the undergraduate level.

What makes the program valuable, he said, is that it helps feed older teachers in the area's school systems. Students who study teaching later in life normally are more committed than their younger counterparts, Longwell-Grice said.

They also bring to the classroom work experience that heightens their teaching. Kroyer-Kubicek is now in her fourth year of teaching science at Slinger High School. When subjects like cells come up, she is able to discuss the hands-on work she has done with them.

"Research suggests that the really effective teachers are a little bit older and have other life experiences," Longwell-Grice said. "They come to it with a different passion."

But turning passion into teaching skills takes work.

As an undergraduate at UWM, Kroyer-Kubicek majored in science. But that didn't mean that she could make other people understand the subject. At UWM, she learned the methods for teaching science. She also relearned some of more difficult parts of science, such as chemical and mathematical equations.

Other classes offered tips on how to understand students from different backgrounds. The tips proved useful, Kroyer-Kubicek said, when she and the program's other participants were placed in a Milwaukee public middle school and later a public high school to student teach.

"For the most part, you're looking at white, suburban, middle- class people going to teach in multi-cultural schools with poor to middle-class students."

Even with several months of preparation, Kroyer-Kubicek was nervous on her first day of student teaching at Morse Middle School.

"When there are 28, 30 kids looking at you, it's nerve wracking," she said. "I kept thinking, Will they listen? What will I do if there's an unruly student?'"

But with the help of the professors at UWM, Kroyer-Kubicek eventually was able to discover what she describes as her "teaching voice."

Four years into full-time teaching, she finds her new profession demanding. Her work week often stretches beyond 50 hours. But she said she couldn't be happier, especially when students tell her that she has made a difference in their lives.

"It's incredibly rewarding," she said, "especially when students let you know that you've touched them in a special way."

Copyright 2006, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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