Teacher training

“ It is maintained by some, that all the Normal School work is professional, in that throughout the curriculum the aim is to present the subject matter of instruction in the way that the teacher should present it to his or her class of children, and so to make the lessons model lessons. ”

“ The teacher, on the other hand, is required to spend years in preparation for his work. He is expected, moreover, to set a worthy example for children to follow. "As the teacher so the school," is a maxim that has stood the test. ”

“ For the special Normal training of teachers the practice of teaching in the lower grades and classes under the supervision of a regular critic teacher, is carried through the greater part of the [Pg 154] senior year, after the study of psychology has been mastered and the principles of school management have been taught. ”

“ The Teacher a Guide, Not a Task-Master
“... Progressive teachers will encourage the use of all the senses, training the pupils in both observation and judgment; and instead of hearing recitations only, will spend most of the time teaching how to use various sources of information, including life activities as well as books; how to reason about the information thus acquired; and how to express forcefully and logically the conclusions reached. Teachers will inspire a desire for knowledge, and will serve as guides in the investigations undertaken, rather than as task-masters. ”

“ Previous to 1870 anyone was thought good enough to undertake the work of teaching; since that time more and more attention has been paid to the qualifications of the teacher and to securing that he shall have attained a certain standard of education, and have received a certain measure of training before engaging upon the work of the instruction of the young. ”

“ So the function of the teacher must change from that of a cicerone and dictator to that of a watcher and helper. As teachers come to watch their individual pupils with a view to allowing each one the fullest development of his thinking and reasoning powers, and to use the tables of reading, writing, and arithmetic as means of training the child’s abilities to judge and act, the rôle of the child necessarily changes too. It becomes active instead of passive, the child becomes the questioner and experimenter. ”

“ The methods of instruction and the modes by which the teacher gains and holds his influence over his pupils have been wonderfully improved in recent times, so that where there was one teacher, fifty years ago, who was really beloved by his pupils, we have fifty now. ”

“ 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 is maintained by others that apart from any advantage which may accrue to the students from hearing good lessons in the various subjects they will have to teach, it is absolutely necessary that each student should change her standpoint, and review the various branches of knowledge as a teacher, rather than as a pupil. This, it is argued, is secured by such a plan of teaching “Methods.” ”

“ A wise teacher will work for his pupils. His aim will be steadily to aid them out of class as well as in class. I know a teacher who meets his class occasionally for a social hour in an informal way. The boys of that class are enthusiastic believers in their teacher and in the power of practical Christian fellowship. Look into the Elder Brother movement, the value of an organized class, and kindred movements that give the teacher the power to direct conduct in the pupil. ”

“ As teachers improve, so do schools; and, as schools improve, so do teachers. The influence exerted by teachers is first beneficial to pupils, but, as a result, we soon have a class of better qualified teachers. With these ideas of the importance of the teacher's vocation to primary instruction, and, consequently, to all good learning, it is not strange [Pg 237] that I place a high value upon professional training. A degree of professional training more or less desirable is, no doubt, furnished, by every school ”

“ The training of the elementary school teacher tends to be dogmatic. True it is that vigilant individuality and passionate love for his exquisitely spiritual calling impel the school teacher to an untiring criticism of his methods, of his actual teaching, and of the life of the school which he directs and promotes. ”

“ 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 plan suggested will be free from the reproach often levelled against the existing method of training teachers, namely, that it is too theoretical and produces people who can talk glibly about education without being able to manage a class. It will also recognise the truth that the young teacher has much to learn in regard to the art or craft of teaching and that there are certain general principles which he must know and follow if he is to be successful in his chosen work. ”

“ The lessons on The Pupil enter a field of study with which the average teacher is perhaps less familiar than with the Bible section. Hence the leader will do well to begin slowly and to allow plenty of time for discussion in the class. Professional teachers who have studied the science of psychology may be very helpful in occasional talks to the class, provided you are assured in advance that they will not confuse the students by the use of technical terms. ”

“ In the training of teachers he was one of the earliest and most effective workers, and the method of requiring all candidates for the teacher's office to give public lessons which were afterwards made the subject of private criticism by the fellow-students and by himself—a method now universally adopted in all good training colleges—may be said to have originated with him. His experience led him also to advocate the teaching of boys and girls together in the primary school, and to attach great value to this association on moral grounds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed. ”

“ In some cases a different course is wise undoubtedly,—as, for example, where a teacher is commencing a private school, on a previously well-digested plan of his own,—or where one who has had experience, and has confidence in his power to bring his new pupils promptly and at once into the system of classification and instruction which he prefers. ”

“ The tests of success in practice-teaching are in the main those to be applied to all teaching. Do her pupils grow more honest, industrious, polite? Do they admire their teacher? Does she secure obedience and industry only while demanding it, or has she influence that reaches beyond her presence? ”

“ First ascertain that superintendent, principal, and teacher can be trusted, and then trust them. The testimony of countless good teachers has been uniform, when asked, "Why don't you do better work? why don't you use the methods learned in normal schools, and educational periodicals, and books?' 'We can not do it. Look at our course of study. In three weeks or months these children will be examined. We have not one moment of time to spend in real teaching.' No wonder that teaching is a trade and not an art! No wonder there is little or no demand for books upon the science and art of teaching!" ”

“ More capable in the beginning than the average teacher, led to professional study, ambitious for the best things, they make greater progress than they otherwise would do, and are sufficient in themselves to inspire the general body of teachers. For the sake of the pupil-teachers, and the children, too, this plan is best. ”

“ In the elementary school, for at least six years, it is better, on the whole, to have each teacher instruct his pupils in all the branches that they study, for the reason that only in this way can he hold an even pressure on the requirements of work, correlating it in such a manner that no one study absorbs undue attention. In this way the pupils prepare all their lessons under the direct supervision of the same teacher and by their recitations show what defects of methods of study there have been in the preparation. ”

“ There may be variety in methods and plan, but, through all this variety, the school, and every individual pupil of it, must go steadily forward in the acquisition of that knowledge which is of greatest importance in the business of future life. In other words, the variations and changes admitted by the teacher ought to be mainly confined to the modes of accomplishing those permanent objects to which all the exercises and arrangements of the school ought steadily to aim. ”

“ At present one of the most hotly debated questions in connection with Normal Schools relates to the subjects to be included in the curriculum. Shall the Normal School give professional training alone, or shall it also provide instruction in Academic subjects? ”

“ The value of your work is sufficiently shown by the high reputation of your examinations and by the constantly increasing number of your candidates, and I sincerely congratulate you on the results you have achieved. In the further development of the work of training teachers you have before you a future of great usefulness, for there can be no doubt that the provision of properly-trained teachers for middle and higher schools is almost, if not quite, as necessary as for our public elementary schools. ”

“ At present ninety-five per cent of the elementary teachers have had professional training, and high school teachers are required to be college graduates or have equivalent scholastic attainment. The most common faults of class-room instruction have been to a great extent eliminated. Standard methods of presentation are being practices in an attempt to give to each child opportunity for development of his possibilities. ”

“ If the school is of higher order, the teacher should, in the same manner, before he forms his plans, consider well what are the great objects which he has to accomplish. He should ascertain what is the existing state of his school, both as to knowledge and character;—how long, generally, his pupils are to remain under his care,—what are to be their future stations and conditions in life, and what objects he can reasonably hope to effect for them, while they remain under his influence. ”

“ Many elementary and secondary teachers have undergone training for their life work, as investigators have, by a different regimen, of course, for theirs. But if college and university teachers do their work well, it is because they are born with competence for their calling, or were self-taught, or happened to grow into competence accidentally, as a by-product of training for other and partly alien ends, or learned to teach by teaching. ”

“ Class lessons must be thought out in advance, and teacher-preparation in itself meant a great change in teaching procedure. Emancipated from dependence on the words of a text, and able to stand before a class full of a subject and able to question freely, teachers became conscious of a new strength and a professional skill unknown in the days of textbook reciting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each class tries its teacher, not because the children wish to be aggravating, but because it is ordained that they shall gain their knowledge and experience by testing each new situation in which they find themselves, and each new person with whom they are brought into close contact. ”

“ But the present plan of changing teachers would be even better than that if only every teacher’s work could be made to project itself not only to graduation day, but to the days of mature manhood and womanhood. 264If only every teacher were able to make each lesson a vital prophecy of what the pupil is to be and to do twenty years hence, then that lesson would become a condition precedent to the pupil’s future behavior. ”

“ When this truth is fully apprehended we may expect to find that the young teacher is required to spend his first year in a school where the head master and one or more members of the regular staff are qualified to guide his early efforts and to establish the necessary link between his knowledge of theory and his requirements in practice. ”