Speech Teacher Education: A Realistic Look at Speech Education Graduates and Their High School Programs

The thesis of this paper is that teacher education is not adequate in terms of producing well rounded and dedicated speech teacher educators who can develop and maintain meaningful secondary speech programs. These programs are often not relevant to the needs of many students. The point is made that educators often transmit to students values which are often those of a dying culture; one of the more important shortcomings is that some unrealistic speech programs do not prepare the students for democracy. It is stated that teachers often support student repression or remain tacitly in agreement, and fail to promote freedom of speech on controversial subjects because of fear of the school administration. It is proposed that speech teacher educators teach the theory and knowledge concerning intra-interpersonal communication as part of the education of future secondary speech teachers. This emphasis on interpersonal communication should be aimed at the future speech teacher's perception of what a teacher is. His ability not only to understand the theory of interpersonal communication but to practice it should be developed. (Author/CK)