From Normal School to College and Universitybased Teacher Training

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From Normal School to College- and
University-based Teacher Training

• Fall, 2006
• EDCI658

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What Is A Normal School?

• A normal school or teachers college is an
  educational institution for training teachers.
• Its purpose is to establish teaching standards
  or norms, hence its name. The term normal school
  is now archaic in all but a few countries. In New
  Zealand, for example, normal schools are
  affiliated with Teachers colleges.
• According to the Oxford English Dictionary,
  normal schools in the United States and Canada
  trained primary school teachers, while in Europe,
  normal schools educated primary, secondary and
  tertiary-level teachers.

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Terminology of Normal School

• The term normal school originated in the early
  19th century from the France. Because the
  graduates of these schools, that is, the
  teachers, were expected to uphold and teach
  norms, or rules, they were called normal schools.
• The terminology is preserved in the official
  translations of such schools in People's Republic
  of China since the early 20th century. A Chinese
  normal university is usually controlled by the
  national or provincial government. A teachers
  college has lower entrance requirements.
• The terminology is also preserved in Europe even
  if some of the original normal schools do not
  serve the purpose of teacher education anymore.

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Origin of Normal School

• Specific training for teachers was originated in
  France (1685) by St. John Baptist de la Salle.
  Teacher training spread rapidly in Europe as a
  result of the work of August Hermann Francke and
  Johann Pestalozzi and through the influence of
  the monitorial system.
• Germany established the first curriculum for
  teacher training in the 18th cent. From Europe
  the monitorial training method spread to the
  United States

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Normal Schools in the United States

• The first normal schools in the United States
  were founded in Massachusetts beginning in the
  late 1830s, thanks largely to the efforts of
  education reformers such as Horace Mann and Henry
  Barnard.
• In 1839, a school known simply as Normal School,
  the first of its kind in the United States,
  opened in Lexington, Massachusetts it has since
  moved and is now known as Framingham State
  College.
• Influenced by similar academies in Prussia and
  elsewhere in Europe, they were intended to
  improve the quality of the burgeoning common
  school system by producing more qualified
  teachers.

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Early Normal Schools in the United States

• First normal school west of the Appalachian
  Mountains in the United States the Michigan
  State Normal School, now Eastern Michigan
  University. It was created by legislative action
  in 1849 and opened in 1853.
• Oldest normal school west of Mississippi River
  was Harries-Stowe State University founded by the
  St. Louis public school system in 1857
• The first state-authorized normal college to open
  west of the Mississippi River was Winona State
  Normal School, now called Winona State
  University. Opening in 1858.

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Early Normal Schools in the United States Cont.

• The first normal school in what is now considered
  the Southwest was opened in 1879 as Sam Houston
  Normal Institute (now Sam Houston State
  University)
• The first state-run normal school on the West
  Coast was the Minns' Evening Normal School,
  created in 1857 to train teachers for San
  Francisco's schools. It was taken over by the
  State of California in 1862 and became the
  California State Normal School (now San Jose
  State University).

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The Transition

• In the United States, the function of normal
  school has been taken up by undergraduate and
  graduate schools of education the schools
  themselves were upgraded to universities focused
  on meeting the needs of the region in which they
  were located.
• Many famous universities, such as the University
  of California, Los Angeles were founded as normal
  schools. In Canada, such institutions are
  typically part of a university as the Faculty of
  Education offering a one- or two-year Bachelor of
  Education program. It requires at least three
  (usually four) years of prior undergraduate
  studies.

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The Transition Cont.

• The sole purpose of normal schools was
  professional instruction of elementary-school
  teachers, an especially strong emphasis was
  placed on the psychology of child development.
• Preparation for secondary-school teaching, which
  demanded a larger academic component, was still
  left to liberal arts colleges.
• Nevertheless, by the turn of the century many
  normal schools had expanded into four-year
  degree-granting teachers colleges, and by the
  1920s and 30s these teachers colleges, generally
  supported by the public, were training
  substantial numbers of the nations public-school
  teachers.   

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Transition Cont.

• Training for secondary-school teachers remained
  primarily a function of liberal-arts colleges
  until after World War II.
• The growing numbers of students and the growing
  need for technical skills in the nations
  workforce led to a demand for secondary education
  that traditional colleges could not meet.
• Since 1945, consequently, most teachers colleges
  have expanded their educational missions and
  become liberal-arts colleges offering a broad
  general education in addition to specialized
  courses in pedagogy.
• In the United States, the first graduate program
  in education was established at New York Univ.
  (1887). In the following year the
  teacher-training school that is presently known
  as Teachers College, Columbia Univ., was founded.
  Since the establishment of those two
  institutions, graduate study in education has
  expanded rapidly.

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The Contribution of Normal Schools

• Established teaching as a profession
• Provide women with opportunities to continue
  their education and to advance in public career
• Met the demand of economic and social changes
  such as the common school movement,
  industrialization, democratic citizenship

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Sources

• http//www.bartleby.com/65/te/teachert.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school
• http//www.nd.edu/rbarger/www7/normal.html
• http//www.primaryresearch.org/PRTHB/schoolhistory
  /synenki.pdf
• http//escholarship.bc.edu/dissertations/AAI921745
  5/