[CHAPTER XXIII]
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS
Increasing Demand for Professional Training
It has been the aim of the preceding chapters of this volume to make it clear that the teacher of the future must be able to cope in a large and intelligent way with problems which are not discussed in courses dealing with the subject-matter ordinarily taught in schools. The compensations offered to the trained teacher are fortunately more adequate than formerly, and increasingly justify the demand that the teacher bring to his or her task a more complete professional training.
American Normal Schools
The proper content of a professional training is a matter on which there is no general agreement in the United States. For a little more than seventy-five years there have existed in this country normal schools for the training of elementary-school teachers. These institutions have in some cases required graduation from high school as a prerequisite for admission, but more commonly not. Their courses of study have in some schools consisted chiefly of reviews of elementary-school subjects supplemented by a modicum of methodology or discussion of how to teach the subjects. In other cases the courses of the normal school have been general, of the type commonly offered in colleges or high schools. Sometimes the normal school has given its students large opportunity to teach children in so-called practice schools or model schools. Sometimes, on the other hand, the students in normal schools have had no direct contact with classroom management, but have gone out into the schools equipped only with the theory of teaching.
The situation with regard to these institutions is set forth in the following paragraphs from a bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education:
Normal schools differ from each other very widely in organization, in admission requirements, in courses of study, and in modes of instruction. The explanation of this lack of uniformity is to be found in the fact that normal schools have never been a part of the system of higher education evolved in this country. Normal schools have grown up in isolation. While the colleges have been in the closest touch with each other through the organization of entrance examination boards and accrediting institutions, while high schools have been brought together by standard definitions of units, normal schools have stood apart. The typical normal school derives its financial support from legislative appropriations, receives its students without competition from a territory over which it exercises exclusive control, and has no difficulty in placing its graduates in positions which they regard as satisfactory. Furthermore, so urgent has been the demand in the country for teachers that school boards and superintendents have not been able to make rigid selections, with the result that standards of training have not been forced upon the normal schools from without.
In a situation where relative isolation has not compelled normal schools to define themselves to others there has been the largest opportunity for the play of personal influences. A strong president has often dominated the policies of a normal school to a degree that is almost unbelievable. The faculty sometimes has little or no voice in determining the courses or the modes of admission. There is no State authority in most of the States which is strong enough to determine what shall be done in normal schools. The result is that within a single State there are the widest variations. One president with the ambition to develop his institution into a degree-granting university goes on his way, while his neighbor uses the funds granted by the same legislature to develop a normal school which loudly announces its objection to granting degrees and limits its activities rigidly to the training of elementary teachers.
In recent years a number of causes have begun to break down the isolation of the normal school. First and foremost is the desire of normal graduates to enjoy the advantages of higher education in universities and colleges. The growth of summer schools at universities and the frequent transfer of normal-school graduates to college and graduate courses show with clearness the desire of teachers to enjoy the advantages of all kinds of higher education. Normal schools, drawn into the current of higher education, have been called upon to announce more definitely their requirements for admission and to describe the content of their courses. What is a course in methods of teaching arithmetic? Is it a review of the course given in an elementary school or is it a discussion of the pedagogical principles on which such courses are arranged? What is a course in practice teaching? Does such a course require of the student any study of material, and does it afford him any adequate critical discussion of his work? There has been a sharp and at times unfriendly clash between normal schools and colleges in the effort to secure answers to such questions. The normal school often takes the position that it administers only high-grade courses, while the colleges express a frank doubt as to the value of these courses for mature students.
Perhaps the disagreement between normal schools and colleges can best be illustrated by the widespread dispute regarding foreign languages. The normal school has been historically related to the vernacular school, and its officers have had little patience with classical or even literary courses. The traditions of the college are of a totally different type. So long as no students passed from normal schools to colleges the normal schools were at liberty to hold to the vernacular, but as soon as normal-school graduates sought admission to higher institutions the controversy was on.
A second reason why normal schools have been called upon to define themselves arises because colleges and universities have in recent years entered the field of teacher training through the organization of departments of education and colleges of education. In the State universities the demand for preparation of high-school teachers has been heard, and generous provisions have in many cases been made for the work of preparing such teachers. The normal schools have looked upon this organization of teacher-training courses as undesired competition. Conversely, the university authorities have been critical of the courses in the normal schools, and the issue has been sharply drawn. Incidentally it may be remarked that college departments of education have usually been subjected to the closest scrutiny and sometimes to violent criticism by other college departments because of their supposed inferiority. It may even be admitted that entrance requirements in the departments of education have sometimes been lower than those for other college departments in the hope of meeting the competition of normal schools, and courses of inferior standard in the college have been tolerated for like reason. All of these disputes and efforts at adjustment have aroused a general inquiry about teacher-training courses which a generation ago would have been without interest except to a small group of specialists. Now the problem is known to all who are interested in education, and the discussion must go on until some satisfactory conclusion is reached.[93]
American Demands on Secondary-School Teachers
If the situation with regard to the training of elementary-school teachers is chaotic, the situation with regard to secondary-school teachers is more so. Until very recently there was little or no effort in the state laws defining requirements for teachers’ certificates to distinguish between elementary teachers and teachers in high schools. The candidate for a position in Latin found himself taking the same examination that would have been required if he had been about to teach a third grade. Of course in practice the school officers who employed the Latin teacher took steps to assure themselves that he had studied that subject, but practice in this respect has never been standardized.