Driftless Region

Dr. Tim Buttles at The School of Education at University of Wisconsin-Platteville heads up the Driftless Region Hub. Tim and his team are sharing the stories of local schools and training the next generation of rural teacher-leaders in place-based education, sustainability, community engagement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The successful preparation of future educators has been a longstanding strength of our Driftless Hub partners at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville School of Education. The university graduates an average of 120 students per year in education, with 80 percent of the graduates teaching in rural communities. Recently, the faculty launched a new rural-focused K-through-9 licensure program.

“We like to say that teaching started here, and now it feels like we’re going back to our roots. We started as this small normal school training rural teachers because that’s all there really were, one-room schoolhouses…There’s a lot of pride for us in that; that teaching started here and now we’re coming back to serve those same communities,” Dr. Jennifer Collins says.

The Platteville School of Education’s team’s passion for their work is evident from the moment you step foot on campus. The UWP educators spoke about their new efforts to overhaul the education curriculum in order to reflect an integrated, place-based, and rural-centric approach. Rural Schools Collaborative was pleased to support a portion of this work through the 2021 Catalyst Initiative, which awarded a $25,000 planning grant to support UWP’s rural teacher preparation efforts. The UWP team aspires to create excellent, rural-ready leaders who go out into the field of education and, as Dr. Collins put it, are easy to pick out and say, “That’s a Platteville grad.”

With a particular emphasis on place-based practices, professional flexibility, equity and inclusivity, and social justice, Dr. Collins sees great opportunities for this program to critically engage students on the realities of living and teaching in a rural area:

“The predominant message we hear is that to be rural is to be at a deficit. Not to say that rural doesn’t have its problems, we most certainly do, but what are our strengths and assets, too? We’re equipping students with the ability to see these issues and the tools to address them. We’re also getting them to look at their place with a critical eye and to see not only whose voices are being shared, but whose are being left out. So, from your first introduction to education class you’ll begin to talk about and think about rural areas.”