Personal Freedom + Synergy = A Humanistic Teacher.

The authors describe a one-quarter, undergraduate teacher education experience that involved a high level of personal freedom and synergy in an attempt to develop humanistic teachers. Twenty-three juniors and seniors were involved in the program, which took the form of an unstructured block of courses in mathematics, science, and social studies. Three instructors were in charge of the block and taught both individually and in teams. Eleven goals were outlined for the course, the first two of which had to be student-initiated. The balance were devoted to viewing math, science, and social studies as human endeavors for which appropriate psychological, philosophical, and practical bases had to be developed. The result hoped for was that each student (and the three teachers) would develop skills that would make the curriculum and/or classroom evolve in a synergetic rather than competitive fashion. Personal freedom was retained to the maximum level to allow students to pursue the stated goals of the course and also to develop their own journals to reflect their readings in the field, personal reactions to the course, evaluations of self, teachers, and program, and miscellany at the students' discretion. Both student and professorial reaction to the program was highly positive, with an emerging concensus that students and teachers were more capable of honest, open relationships and the pursuit of educational goals in a setting of interpersonal cooperation and personal freedom. (MB)