The last couple of years, several scholars, such as Dave Schimmel in this article, have argued that pre-service teachers need more exposure to legal and ethical issues before they hit the classroom. Well, at this conference I am seeing that support grow amongst representatives of Professional Standards Boards. Representatives of 2 Professional Standards Boards were in the last session I attended and both articulated support for a more formalized ethics and legal effort in pre-service.
This is a very good sign and I was highly encouraged. While they articulated that they could not mandate classes that College of Education must offer, they would certainly highly support such an offering. Now, Colleges of Education move very slowly, but if Standards Boards are willing to openly express support for a ethical and legal component in pre-service, then I think Colleges of Education will slowly but surely respond.
So, the task before us is to consolidate this open support for such a component by having these Professional Standards Board personnel publish this desire as openly and widely as possible.