Teacher certification

“ So far as is known, no college or university makes education an absolute requirement such as is made with respect to foreign languages, science, mathematics, or philosophy. In a large majority of states, some work in education is re [Pg 361] quired for teacher's certification. The number of states making such requirements is rapidly increasing. Before long it will be impossible for persons to engage in teaching without either attending a normal school or taking professional courses in education in college. ”

“ If any pupils should arrive at this state of proficiency before thirteen or fourteen, they could even then leave school only through the official certification of the teacher, minister, and 374 inspector. Provision was also made for the attendance of children who had to herd cattle or were too poor to pay the school fees. Sunday continuation schools were to be established for young people beyond the school age. Teachers must have attended Hecker’s seminary and had to be examined and licensed by the inspector. ”

“ Developing, or assisting local educational agencies in developing, teacher advancement initiatives that promote professional growth and emphasize multiple career paths (such as paths to becoming a career teacher, mentor teacher, or exemplary teacher) and pay differentiation. `` (15) Providing assistance to teachers to enable them to meet certification, licensing, or other requirements needed to become highly qualified by the end of the fourth year for which the State receives funds under this part (as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) . ”

“ No teacher should be employed, until his qualifications have been put to a rigid test. In the case of public schools, this should be done by public authority; and in private schools, the patrons should select a suitable number of persons, competent to perform this work. ”

“ Examination you name, is not supposed to qualify for advanced teaching. If you pass in honours, it is of course more valuable. You could not expect a high salary with only this certificate, if, indeed, you could obtain a post as pianoforte teacher in a good school ”

“ In any considerable city a school for practice will not suffice; many schools for practice must be secured. This can be done by selecting one excellent teacher in each of a sufficient number of school buildings, and making her a critic-teacher, giving her charge of two schoolrooms, in each of which is placed a pupil-teacher for training.
This insures that the training shall be done as nearly as may be under ordinary conditions, brings the pupil-teachers at once into the general body of 111 teachers, makes the corps of critics a leaven of zeal, and good teaching scattered among the schools. ”

“ Carrying out programs that establish, expand, or improve alternative routes for State certification of teachers and principals, especially in the areas of mathematics and science, for highly qualified individuals with a baccalaureate or master's degree, including mid-career professionals from other occupations, paraprofessionals, former military personnel, and recent college or university graduates with records of academic distinction who demonstrate the potential to become highly effective teachers or principals. ”

“ Just 500 of these teachers have been certified since 1995. My budget will enable 100,000 more to seek national certification as master teachers. We should reward and recognize our best teachers. And as we reward them, we should quickly and fairly remove those few who don't measure up, and we should challenge more of our finest young people to consider teaching as a career. ”

“ Teachers who shall have obtained the mark of excellent in the revalida examination, shall be empowered to continue their studies, and to become candidates for the superior teacher’s certificate, and can also take regular charge of ascenso schools. ”

“ No person should be admitted to this class who is not willing to give some time during the week to the study of the course. While the rest of the school may be studying the regular lessons, whether graded or uniform, this class should be at work with the teacher-training text-books. There should be thorough instruction with examinations looking toward a certificate of work done, such as the International Teacher-training diploma. ”

“ Teachers College of Columbia University is on a graduate basis. Though many of the 250 training and normal schools throughout the country do not require a high school diploma for admission, the tendency is wholly in that direction. In no field of professional education has the application of scientific principles to actual practice made such progress as in that of the teacher. ”

“ The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which I signed into law in January 2002, requires that, by the end of the 2005- 06 school year, there must be a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom. Through this new law, States and school districts will have multiple tools to help them meet the new teacher quality requirements. ”

“ Their fitness to undertake the work of teaching is not tested specifically, save in the case of certain classes of teachers in public elementary schools, nor is there any general agreement as to the proper nature and scope of such a test, could one be devised. Usually, it is true, the prospective employer demands evidence that the intending teacher has some knowledge of the subject he is to teach. He may seek to satisfy himself that the applicant has other desirable qualities, personal and physical, which will fit him to take an active and useful part in school work. ”

“ The qualifications which have been mentioned are important, not only in the higher seminaries, but also in common schools. The amount of instruction which will be given by a thoroughly qualified teacher, will greatly exceed that which is given by a person of inferior qualifications, even where very young children are concerned, and the time of the pupil, and the money of the parent, will be saved by the employment of such teachers. ”

“ No person is permitted to teach in any public school of any state without having first received a teacher's certificate, which may be obtained by passing a written examination or by completing a course of study at a high school, normal school or college. In almost all of the states of the Union one or more normal schools for the special training of teachers for the public schools exist as a part of the educational system. Certain states require that high schools shall give instruction in those subjects that will be of special value to teachers. ”

“ College degrees conferred upon one and years of teaching experience do not of themselves qualify one for the profession of teaching or of supervising of teaching and do not constitute the sole criteria for admeasurement of teacher worth. ”

“ In general it is safe to say that teachers enter upon their vocation without sufficient education. Our certificate requirements are low, and many enter upon teaching with little or no more schooling than that obtained in the schools where they begin teaching. Of course this is radically wrong, but it is the fault of our school system and not of the teacher. ”

“ The programme of primary education includes: moral and civic instruction; reading, writing, French, geography and history (particularly those of France) ; general notions of law and science; the elements of drawing, modelling, and music; and gymnastics. No person of either sex can become a teacher, either public or private, unless he possesses the 'certificate of capacity for primary instruction' given by a State board. For the future--putting aside certain temporary arrangements--no member of a religious community will be eligible for the post of master in a public school. ”

“ The more the teachers are themselves the examiners, the better; the less examining becomes a profession and a special staff, the better. Do not set examiners to test teachers as well as students; do not set up mechanical rules whereby to test the examiner. Believe that it is possible to learn without any prize, money, or reward in view. Trust the teacher; trust him to teach, trust him to examine. Trust the examiner, and do not set up a mill. Above all, trust the student. Encourage him to study for the sake of knowledge, for his own sake, and the public good. ”

“ However desirable such a questionable asset may seem to certain college professors, it is a serious fault in a high school teacher to have any considerable number of normal children fail. The ambition of the good instructor is to give an examination which shall at once be thorough, reasonable, and intelligently directed toward finding what the student has really learned. His purpose is to test accurately the various abilities which he has endeavored to encourage in the student during his course. ”

“ Why not a special course of high standard for those who plan to devote their lives to the direction of the formative years of its children? It is probably explained in large part by the failure to recognize [Pg 21] teaching as a profession. The Schools of Education throughout the country have been insisting upon real professional training for teachers but other departments are deplorably slow in cooperating. ”

“ It maintains that such instruction cannot be successfully given by regular school teachers. As in other industries the teacher needs actual experience in the occupation for which training is given. Academic training and teaching experience are desirable and valuable, but among the qualifications demanded of a teacher of this kind they are of secondary importance. ”

“ The four-year state teachers' colleges of the United States can be counted on the ten fingers, and their ultimate sphere of influence is being debated. It would seem, however, that the adequate teacher-training institution must be as broad in its facilities and standards as are the conditions of modern life with which teachers must cope. ”

“ It has done this, not by emphasizing the value of professional training in itself, apart from its connection with scholastic equipment, but by insisting that the secondary teacher can only be fully prepared for his work when careful scholastic preparation is supplemented by a consideration of principles and methods of teaching, and by actual class work. Much of the successful work of the Teachers’ College is probably due to the thorough preparation required before beginning work, and to the maturity of the students who take the courses. ”

“ This is done through teachers' institutes in all the States, summer schools, teachers' training classes in the high schools, normal schools, and departments and chairs of pedagogy in the universities; and by means of these agencies almost every teacher receives more or less professional instruction which enables her to grasp the problem she is to undertake in the management of a school in a more skilled and scientific manner. ”

“ Moreover, the record keeping, and, no doubt, some of the supervision begun during the apprentice years would continue during the early instructorial years. This would render it possible to evaluate and to value effectiveness in teaching in making promotions. Ambitious teachers would no longer be practically forced, as their only resort, to neglect their students and give their best energies to publication in order to make a name and get a call, in the interest of promotion. The expert teacher would have a chance and a dignity equal to that of the skilled investigator. ”

“ Had you been under eighteen, you might have become an apprentice as a pupil-teacher in an elementary school; but as you are eighteen already, you had better pass the Queen’s Scholarship Examination, and then seek employment as an assistant teacher, or, much better, enter a teachers’ training college. You could study all the requirements more fully by obtaining through a bookseller a copy of the New Code, issued by the Education Department. If you wanted further advice, it is probable that some Board School or National School mistress in your own town would give it. ”

“ He must be actively engaged in an endeavour to extend the bounds of knowledge at the point where his work as teacher falls. He must be a specialist offering instruction in the specialty with which he is occupied; and the instruction offered can reach its best efficiency only in so far as it is incidental to an aggressive campaign of inquiry on the teacher's part. ”

“ Providing professional development for teachers and principals and, in cases in which a State educational agency determines support to be appropriate, supporting the participation of pupil services personnel in the same type of professional development activities as are made available to teachers and principals. `` (7) Developing systems to measure the effectiveness of specific professional development programs and strategies to document gains in student academic achievement or increases in teacher mastery of the academic subjects the teachers teach. ”

“ Every teacher is required to pass an examination prepared by the commissioner of education as a test of his or her qualifications, and the teacher is responsible to the educational department for the enforcement of the rules and the application of the methods of instruction that have received its indorsement. ”

“ But the inherent intellectual defects of an educational system dependent wholly on ignorant and immature agents, though not visible at first, revealed themselves before many years; and in 1846 the newly constituted education department took the important step of superseding monitors by pupil-teachers, all of whom were required before apprenticeship to pass through the elementary course, and afterwards to receive regular instruction and to be trained for the office of teacher. The pupil-teacher system itself has now been to a large extent displaced by the employment of adult teachers. ”