The King's Connection Magazine Volume 25 // Number 1 | страница 12

EDUCATION PROFILE
Photos Provided By
Laughing Dog

KING’S EDUCATION
PROGRAM CELEBRATES
20 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE
“ The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD

“ KING’S BACHELOR OF EDUCATION PROGRAM
HELPS STUDENTS DEVELOP AN AUTHENTIC
CONNECTION BETWEEN THEIR FAITH AND THEIR
TEACHING PRACTICES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
IN THE LIVES OF CHILDREN.”

G

reat professors have been inspiring student teachers at
The King’s University for 20 years now, in an accredited
program that has won over even the harshest of critics and
continues to shape and prepare students to educate children
at Public, Catholic, Independent and Christian K-12 schools
in Alberta and beyond. Graduates qualify for teacher
certification in Alberta, across Canada, and abroad. King’s
education graduates consistently rank among the best
prepared teachers in the province.
“We have a very forward looking, innovative approach,”
says Lloyd Den Boer, dean of the Education program. “Our
program is very focused on learning to teach. We both teach
how to craft your own philosophy of teaching, as well as
making students aware of the importance of their subject
content, so they know it very, very well.”
King’s goes beyond what is found in most Education programs, “to answer the question, how does this fit into being
human,” Dean Den Boer explains. “It’s about students’ personal identity connected to their faith or their ideals. Our

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Summer 2015 THE KING’S CONNECTION

challenge is to teach who you are, which has to rise above
the level of consumerism. Students are helped to discover
the larger commitments that are going to be their drivers in
their role as teachers.” That’s the King’s difference.
The Elementary Education program began in 1995, and the
Secondary Education program joined it about six years ago,
thanks to a significant multi-year financial commitment
from The King’s University College Foundation. The program now offers a mixed approach for both that results in “a
cross-fertilization of thinking,” Dean Den Boer says. Coupled
with a strong, supervised practicum program for students,
as well as bringing master teachers, the best of the best from
the real world of teaching, into Education classrooms for
weeks at a time, the result is highly successful grads who are
sought after throughout the province. Exit surveys of
students consistently give King’s the highest marks.
Teachers in schools around the province call to ask for
King’s Education students to do their practicums with them.
And just a few years ago, the Alberta Teachers’ Association
(ATA) fully recognized the King’s program, after years of