Dean Elizabeth Birr Moje discusses issues facing teachers, schools, and students as they head back to school on the Michigan Minds podcast

As students and teachers head back to school, Marsal Family School of Education Dean Elizabeth Birr Moje joins the Michigan Minds podcast to discuss a range of issues facing students and teachers in today’s education landscape. Looking at the experience of learning from birth through twelfth grade, she points to the inequity in early learning opportunities, the shortage of well-prepared teachers, and lack of funding for schools. Moje also discusses the problems posed by absenteeism, and the efforts currently underway to improve Michigan’s low literacy scores.

“We have many changes facing the world, and those changes come into education. And yet we don’t have enough well-prepared teachers. The single most important ingredient, as demonstrated through numerous research studies in a child’s learning life, is a well-prepared teacher. Not just a warm body in a classroom, but a well-prepared teacher,” says Moje.

To mitigate the teacher shortage and to best prepare new teachers for success in the classroom, Moje points to a number of strategies the Marsal School is enacting, including directly admitting first year students into the school as of this fall and the teaching residency program at The School at Marygrove.

“I hope that everyone understands how important education is. I hope that they will really support our teachers being compensated in the way they should be. I hope they’ll remember that our teachers are holding children’s lives in their hands, and they’re holding the future in their hands, and we need to support them in being the best they can be.”