During a time when the teaching profession is experiencing a 50-year low in prestige, interest, preparation, and satisfaction, McDaniel Education faculty share how they’re preparing pre-service teachers to expect the unexpected and thrive as educators.
Professor of Education Ochieng’ K’Olewe became a teacher because he had the worst professor ever. It was back when he was attending a midwestern graduate school and studying to become an economist, having already earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business.
“I never thought I’d be a teacher. I never wanted to be a teacher. If you asked me why I was taking economics classes, I’d say it was what I thought I wanted to do,” he says. He just hadn’t had his eureka moment yet.
That moment came during an exceedingly boring lecture given by a professor he couldn’t stand. He thought to himself, “I can teach better than this guy.”
The next day, he walked into the Education department and joined the Secondary Education graduate program. It’s not the usual teacher origin story — and isn’t a route he’d recommend everyone follow — but it perfectly suits K’Olewe’s candid nature and his sense of humor.
And it worked out well for him. He went on to teach in K-12 schools in Illinois, Maryland, and West Virginia, earned his Doctor of Education, and is now in his 28th year of teaching in the Education Department at McDaniel College. He has supported countless cohorts of up-and-coming teachers.
As K’Olewe can attest, pre-service teachers choose the profession for many reasons. Some want to be different from their own teachers; some want to be just like them. Either way, what inspires them to become teachers is not as important as how they’re trained to teach.
And in a time when the teaching profession is in a steep decline, teacher preparation is more important than ever.
A study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research in April 2024 found a decline in aspects of the U.S. K-12 teaching profession since 2010. Perceived prestige of the profession, interest in becoming a teacher, preparation for the career, and satisfaction with teaching jobs have sunk to record lows.
“The majority of the U.S. population has had a school experience,” says Laura Albaugh Bitto ’04, assistant professor of Education. “In some ways, it makes people feel like they’re an expert on education. The average person may not view teachers as the professionals that they are, and some may even see them simply as caregivers.”
While many current issues facing the profession are related to public policy, perception, and even compensation, that does not mean the ranks of teachers won’t rise again. Programs dedicated to producing teachers who are well-prepared for their chosen career — like those offered at McDaniel — can be integral to reinvigorating the profession. In fact, McDaniel’s teacher graduates defy the odds during this 50-year low.
Over 90% of Education graduates from McDaniel are still employed as teachers five years after graduation, exceeding state and national averages of around 50%. For decades, McDaniel
has consistently produced top educators in Maryland, with more than 30 alums since 2010 recognized as County Teachers of the Year — most recently in 2024 — and four as Maryland Teachers of the Year — one as recently as 2023.
So, how are McDaniel faculty training pre-service teachers to weather challenges and have long, successful careers in education? Two professors share their perspectives.
Education students typically begin with K’Olewe’s course Teaching and Learning in a Diverse Society. It’s all about educational psychology: theories about how we learn; the significance of teacher quality and relationships; the origin of classroom rules; theories of motivation; how we develop cognitively and why it’s important.
“As teachers, we deal with the brain, with student behavior and thinking,” K’Olewe says. “In elementary math, for instance, there’s a point at which they introduce counting in a series, because research shows children can begin thinking like that.”
Children develop at their own pace and their unique backgrounds can influence how they learn in school. Over time, educators may also teach at under-resourced schools or with different age groups, so K’Olewe prepares his pre-service teachers to be “able to understand your students and your own learning as a teacher,” he says.
That class lays the groundwork for his next course. In Planning and Evaluation in Instruction, primarily first-year students and sophomores observe professional teachers in local schools to connect their lessons to practical teaching.
“Taking that class is a good way for them to determine if they really want to teach,” K’Olewe says, since they see firsthand how theory doesn’t always translate to the bustle of a classroom. He encourages pre-service teachers to carefully consider their potential career early in their time at McDaniel. It’s key to producing confident educators who understand and are prepared for the realities of the classroom.
“The Education program at McDaniel equipped me with the essential skills to be a successful teacher. One of the greatest skills I learned was to be a reflective practitioner. This skill was crucial to my success as a student and as a teacher.”
— Tamya Bydume ’24 Elementary Education major, fifth grade teacher at Cranberry Station Elementary School
K’Olewe grew up in Kenya in the 1960s and 1970s, not long after the country declared independence from Britain. The Kenyan education system retained the British model: highly regimented and competitive with thousands of students striving for a few seats at a single university.
He took an alternative path by traveling to the United States to attend an American university, and says he had to adjust from the British to the American system. It took some time to get used to the American fondness for copious amounts of homework and quizzes.
“In that regard, I probably could have been a better student,” he admits with a laugh.
He teaches from his unique experiences, since his own time as a student was influenced by the school system in Kenya and his transition to U.S. universities. Teaching is all about self-reflection, so K’Olewe invites his students to consider their own experiences in elementary, middle, and high school while learning about the mechanisms behind teaching. “There’s always a lens through which you can look at your experience and find why it happened or what it means,” he says.
Encouraging his students to have a thorough social, cultural, and historical understanding of their experience and role within the education system is a core part of the McDaniel Plan. Including self-reflection in his pedagogy was inspired by his time as a high school teacher.
“I can still remember a conversation I had with a fellow high school teacher about how we can relate lessons to the students’ experiences. Because come to think of it, everything we teach is abstract,” he says. “That’s why I always say to my educational psychology class, ‘Bring your experiences into the classroom, because what we’ll talk about is abstract, but what makes it concrete are your experiences.’”
“People usually want to go into teaching math because they either loved math class or they hated it and struggled, and they don’t want that to be somebody else’s experience,” says Laura Albaugh Bitto ’04.
Specializing in educating future math teachers at McDaniel, Bitto, plays a crucial role in the Education department, since math education has long been a challenging subject both for educators to teach and students to learn.
While some students become full-time math teachers, Elementary Education majors must be able to teach all subjects, sometimes with support from mathematics specialists.
Bitto was among the first in the nation to hold a K-8 Mathematics Specialist master’s degree and spent years working as a mathematics specialist in schools. She’s seen the ups and downs of math education firsthand.
Recently, there have been some downs. In December of 2024, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, released by the National Center for Education Statistics, found that 2023 math scores of fourth graders declined 18 points while math scores of eighth graders had declined by 27 points since 2019. Fourth grade math scores were the lowest they had been since the U.S. began participating in the global study in 1995.
The drop could be attributed to lingering effects of the pandemic, but regardless of the reason, many will look to teachers to be the solution. Which is why math teacher educators like Bitto are vital to producing the next generation of teachers.
“Being able to have practicum experiences with my peers was an enriching and powerful experience. I get to learn from not only my classes at McDaniel but other like-minded people, such as my peers and other educators.”
— Aleigh Freedsenior Elementary Education major
Bitto follows in the footsteps of Professor Emeritus of Education Francis “Skip” Fennell, a former math teacher educator at McDaniel. He was key in establishing the department’s approach to producing top math educators.
“The notion that we’re preparing teachers to be equally proficient in what I refer to as the Big Four — classroom management, content, instruction, and assessment — is a huge challenge to begin with, let alone the unique challenges related to mathematics,” Fennell says. “We need to make sure that all children have an opportunity to experience a math curriculum where they feel engaged and are being led by a teacher who understands math, knows when to go back, and when to move forward.”
Bitto loves math. And she knows teaching is in the little things — and anything can be a lesson.
Twenty years ago, when she was a Mathematics major with a minor in Education, she was given the humble chore of organizing math manipulatives in a closet of Thompson Hall — boxes and boxes of colorful blocks, a veritable kaleidoscope for teaching geometry, rational numbers, division, and multiplication.
She would hike across campus with Professor Emeritus Fennell to the tucked-away closet whenever they needed the materials. When Fennell asked for her help organizing it all, she agreed.
“What I didn’t know at the time was that Professor Fennell wanted me to see the different manipulatives that we didn’t explore in class — to really get my hands on them as I’m organizing them,” Bitto says. “His mentorship and leadership were woven into every interaction and simple task.”
Encountering those materials early on prepared her to later incorporate them into her teaching. “Being a teacher means lifelong learning — a catchphrase we all use in education, but you have to be learning in order to succeed in the career,” she says.
“Dr. Bitto and Dr. Becca Gibson made my time at McDaniel amazing. They were so supportive and helpful in my journey to becoming a teacher. I hated math as a kid and Dr. Bitto believed in me that I could do it and be the best math teacher I could be. Now, I love teaching math and fostering a math classroom where my students also love it.”
— Heather Shockley ’23, M.S. ’24Elementary Education major and Special Education master’s, first grade teacher at Taneytown Elementary School
Now in the same role once held by Fennell, Bitto introduces her students to the techniques, tools, and materials of teaching that they can bring into their own classrooms one day. Her personal supply of math manipulatives lines her office shelves, and she hints the department has a stockpile of them too.
Subtle lessons are not all that’s needed, however. Bitto makes it clear to her students that passion for teaching is only the beginning. “Teaching takes specialized training, at which I think McDaniel does a fantastic job,” Bitto says.
Gaining tangible skills and knowing what to expect can help pre-service teachers go the long run in the profession.
“You have to know every content area,” Bitto tells her students. “You have to take three courses each of science, social studies, math, and reading, because you’re going to be teaching all of those in elementary school. You have to be a good communicator. You have to be in control of your emotions. You have to be strategic in your decisions. You have to be flexible, yet you have to be a really good planner. And there’s the tension of autonomy versus lacking control over every variable.”
It’s unique, but Education majors and minors begin student teaching in their sophomore year on the Hill.
“Getting practical experience in live classrooms with children is so valuable,” Bitto says. “Right away, we want our teacher candidates to bridge theory to reality. We could talk all day long about how to teach, but it’s in doing the teaching that you learn.”
Especially since no two classes will have the same dynamic.
“I have learned the importance of understanding that each student has unique learning differences and how to include each student’s learning styles into each and every lesson.”
— Katelyn BaurSenior Elementary Educator major with a minor in American Sign Language
“How do you prepare someone for the unknown? You can identify all of the behaviors happening in classrooms right now, but that doesn’t mean it will happen in your classroom. There are so many variables,” Bitto says.
To overcome uncertainties, she trains her pre-service teachers to facilitate a dynamic and responsive classroom that adapts to each student.
“At its heart, differentiation means I see you, the individual, and I will help you grow in your path,” she says. It’s a philosophy she follows with her McDaniel students too.
With guidance from faculty like K’Olewe and Bitto, McDaniel graduates go on to earn their professional licensure, joining the ranks of educators to stand out as leaders. They go on, equipped with educational psychology, teaching tools and practices — and perhaps a new love for math, or social studies, or reading. They go on ready to make a difference in the lives of children.
K’Olewe’s experiences growing up in Kenya have opened the door for McDaniel students’ community service abroad, and his own support for schools overseas.
In 2002, he traveled to Kenya with two of his sons and decided to use their extra luggage allowance on the plane for suitcases stuffed with books and school supplies he had collected through a drive in the Education Department. He had no plans beyond delivering them to Kopudo, his hometown village. His family shared them with anyone interested, and a few years later, a kindergarten opened using some of the donated materials.
For a Jan Term in 2011, K’Olewe and a group of McDaniel students traveled to Kenya to help renovate the small building that housed the kindergarten to accommodate a first grade classroom. The school now teaches children up to the third grade. Over 500 students have gone through the school, and the first group of kindergarten students have graduated from high school. K’Olewe also established a scholarship for high-need students in the area.
In 2016, he helped establish an all-girls high school in Kopudo and a scholarship for its students. One year for his birthday, he refused gifts and instead invited family and friends to donate and establish a home economics program at the school.
Historically, it has taken a while for all-girls high schools to be common in rural Kenya, in part because of cultural traditions and limited resources. “Within my community, the Luo, you don’t marry within your clan, you get married across clans. Women leave their community to join another when they marry,” he explains.
Because of this tradition, rural families with limited resources often choose to educate their sons, rather than their daughters who will eventually leave.
“However, that is at the face value. The reality of the matter is, in rural communities, it’s women who do most of the development activities,” K’Olewe says. “Not only that, but women also tend to reach back to where they came from. And I can see that with my sister and my mother, who always took care of her mother.”
That reality is a major reason he supports girls’ education in Kopudo. It helps the girls catch up to the boys and benefits every community.
“The school has changed the lives of those kids. And it’s changed the thinking in the village because people realize that educating girls is not throwing away your money — it’s an investment. We are very, very proud of it,” he says.
