Dr. Selma Wassermann: sowing seeds

Still — something must have felt right.

"I liked the place. I liked the people. And I signed a contract to come."

That decision would help define Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Education's identity for generations.

Selma was a New Yorker. She saw and learned firsthand the traditional teacher-training model that followed sequence and structure: Introduction to Education, History of Education, Methods, Practicum. At SFU, the head of the Professional Development Center and later faculty Dean, John Ellis, told her, "Instead, we have a blank slate — design the professional program."

She was surprised, maybe shuddered with the utter newness of this strange requisition. But the freedom she felt was euphoric. This new Faculty without even a building became the platform: new enough, brave enough, and open enough to let ideas breathe, methods fail and be reconstructed.

The early few years turned out to be imprinted with a culture of boldness, flexibility, deep collegiality, and a radical belief that the children in the classrooms and the teachers merited something better and innovative.

The lack of a permanent abode made way for extraordinary opportunities, though. They were able to experiment on different concepts of classrooms. When the Faculty relocated to the MPX Building in the late 1980s, the open-space classrooms reflected a pedagogical shift already underway which became an SFU signature that Selma helped pioneer.

The spaces themselves shaped innovation. Selma's most famous initiative, 'The Delicious Alternative' (EDUC 483)in the 1970s, took place inside the large open rooms of MPX. The objective of this project was to transform the way teachers learned and how children could learn. "It was the only class where students could get a sunburn," she laughs. Classroom doors opened to a patio where learning spilled outdoors, students worked in small groups or pairs; the instructor became a facilitator on the sideline, not a mere presenter of the big ideas.

Space mattered. Flexibility mattered. And SFU, still forming its identity, allowed those possibilities to germinate.

Among all the programs she designed or worked on, Selma calls the Professional Development Program (PDP) "the jewel in the crown."

PDP's first intake had just 35 students enrolled. But the following year, the program received close to 300 applications, which was a strong proof that the program's philosophy of early classroom immersion started to build resonance throughout the province.

Starting with Education 401, students were placed immediately into BC classrooms. "To begin a program by putting a brand-new student teacher directly into a classroom, this was as bold as anything you could imagine," she said. It defied the conventional wisdom of the time and drew skepticism and open criticism from the province's more established institutions.

Yet it worked!