The training of teachers in the United States of America

by Amy Blanche Bramwell; H. Millicent Hughes

Determination of boiling-point of fresh and salt water.

Such a treatment of subjects is a strong protest against routine work and rigid method. It allows great scope to the teacher by concentrating attention on the child and its needs, rather than on the artificial divisions into so-called subjects, and their methods. On the other hand, it puts great responsibility upon the teacher, and taxes his skill to the utmost. There are many difficulties in adopting the plan, one of the chief being the construction of the school time-table. In any case, the practical application of such a system can only be partial, until all teachers are enthusiasts and experts; but the lines of work seem to be true lines, and may be suggestive of much that shall reform some of our own old methods.

Practice in Teaching.

It is usual for each Normal School to have attached to it a Model School, which serves the double purpose of model and practising school for students. The head of the Model School and her assistants are experienced teachers, known as the critic teachers, and to the care and supervision of these the students are submitted during their training in practical teaching. All the Normal Schools I saw had such a Model School except the one at Providence, Rhode Island.

The amount of time actually devoted to teaching by each student is different in different States, and the plans by which the required amount is secured for all vary in the different schools.

The State of Pennsylvania requires of its Normal School students actual practice in teaching for one hour a day during three-fourths of the last year of the Course; but students generally do more than this. At Westchester, Pennsylvania, the students go into the Model School in sections of six each morning after 10.30. A new section is chiefly engaged in observing the children, and hearing lessons given by the critic teachers or other students. Later, the students teach, but always under supervision. The subject matter of their lessons is definitely mapped out for them by the critic teacher, and they discuss with her the best ways of treating it. There are no written notes of lessons, and no public criticism of lessons, either by teachers or students. Each week, meetings of teachers and students are held, for the purpose of taking up any points noted during the students’ work of the week. These are really talks supplementary to the ordinary method lectures. At Millersville, Pennsylvania, each student gives two or three lessons every day for a year. She teaches in different grades, and takes lessons in different subjects, and has also practice in managing simultaneously several divisions of one class.

At the Oswego Normal School, under the regulations of the New York State, the student is in the schools only twenty weeks, but during this time she has much responsibility. She spends ten weeks in a primary or elementary grade, and ten weeks in a more advanced grade, and during the whole time is practically responsible for her class. Each afternoon, after the school is dismissed, the teaching class remains for an hour to discuss any points of difficulty with the Head of the Model School.

At Willimantic, Connecticut, the teaching class spends its first four weeks in general observation of children, and hearing lessons. Then each student is placed under the supervision of one special critic teacher, and she continues some of the courses of work already begun by the critic teacher. At least four weeks are spent by each student in every grade in the school, first in observing, then in teaching under the criticism of the class teacher.

The Model School at New Britain, Connecticut, is preserved strictly as a Model School. After observing teacher and class for some time, the student usually gives one trial lesson in the school, but there is no systematic teaching by the student. For the actual independent practice, the student must go to a practising school outside New Britain, and be entirely responsible for a class for four months. At the large practising school in connection with the New Britain Normal School, at South Manchester, I saw students dealing with the actual difficulties of discipline and class-management. Each student was in charge of a large class with different divisions or grades. There were four responsible, experienced teachers for reference in cases of emergency, and for criticism; but each student had her own class, and the school of 700 children was practically managed by students. Such is the general plan of practice-work in the Normal Schools.

Much care is given to the Model Schools. The class-rooms are supplied with all necessary apparatus, and they are bright and airy, and well supplied with flowers and children’s books. It is quite customary in some of the schools to give short periods in school hours for private reading, or to allow one child to read to the other children while they are doing some kind of mechanical work. Much importance is laid upon the observation of the teaching in Model Schools. It is possible, however, that this is insisted on too early in the course; indeed, the hearing of lessons is usually the students’ first work in the school. It would be much more profitable, and there would be less danger of blind imitation, if the student had herself previously gained experience in teaching. As it is, the danger of imitation, and one-sided and narrow lines of teaching is increased by the fact that one student is chiefly under the supervision of one teacher.