Mission Statement

Berkeley City College’s Education Teacher Preparation Program’s mission is to create exceptional teachers. We intend to do this by finding and recruiting a diverse population of students who are interested in teaching and to transform their interest into passion. We will help students find the educational and career pathway appropriate to their individual interests, and provide the mentoring, tutoring, and other resources to ensure students’ success in attaining the permits, certificates, degrees, and/or teaching credentials they need for their careers. We are committed to providing support for students to enter a career teaching in early childhood education, transitional kindergarten, K-12 classrooms, two- or four-year colleges, or career education (CE) programs. We promise to provide exceptional training, giving future teachers the skills and values to work with a diverse student body, including students who have special needs or who are English language learners.  We are devoted to helping our students fulfill their passion and meet the challenges of learning about controversial educational issues, engaging in exploration and discussion of these issues, and working in environments that, perhaps, take them outside their comfort zones.

Diversity & Inclusion Statement

The Berkeley City College’s Education Teacher Preparation Program is comprised of students and teachers of various ages from every walk of life developing side by side to strengthen our learning communities.  We are dedicated to ensuring that everyone regardless of ability, age, cultural background, ethnicity, faith, gender, gender identity, ideology, income, national origin, race, or sexual orientation has the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity. Our Philosophy of Education is representative of our core values guiding the design and implementation of our program.

Philosophy of Education

(This statement guides our faculty’s interaction with our students and should guide your interaction with your current or future students).

TPP at BCC Deeply Believes

• all students can learn and succeed academically, especially when given support such as individual mentoring, tutoring, and access to academic as well as mental health counselors;
• one size does NOT fit all, so teachers must be flexible and take all students’ individual needs into account when planning lessons, implementing lessons, and giving assignments;
• all students deserve an equitable education, partly achieved by identifying, observing, and exploring overt as well as implicit bias in ourselves, in others, and in the education and social systems out of which we and our students developed;
• all students deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, dignity, and integrity,
• all students should be encouraged to participate in learning about social justice, how to overcome obstacles to it, and how to achieve it. This means being willing to identify social justice problems and to engage in questioning, exploring, and discussing these issues,
• teachers should create a safe, student-centered learning environment. This means making the academic, social, and emotional needs of students a priority, by finding ways to support their learning and by focusing on how they learn. Teachers should also teach from a genuine place of compassion, empathy, and, yes, even love.