The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Professor Münsterberg contends that it is unwise to give high-school
teachers special professional education apart from knowledge of the
subjects which they are to teach; that it is folly to replace a
prescribed course of study by an elective system; that the salvation
of our schools depends upon the scholarship of the teachers and the
attitude of parents. As the reformers agree heartily with this last
claim (unless it is made an exclusive aim), and as its meaning is so
vague that almost anything can be urged as a corrolary to it, it may
be dismissed. The first two contentions are about concrete matters of
educational practice which need to be thought over. If professional
preparation is a waste of time, there is every reason why we should
omit it; if a prescribed course of study is better for the boys
and girls, we can conscientiously lessen the expense and labor of
administration in many schools.
The argument on the first point is, briefly, that Professor
Münsterberg’s teachers were good teachers and that they had no notion
of even the vocabulary of educational theories. But obviously that
may not have been the secret of their success. A majority of the
high-school teachers in New England have had no professional training,
yet no one has observed that they are superior to those of their class
who have. The argument is really a bare assertion of an unverified
guess. It is the hap-hazard opinion of an eminent psychologist who
perchance is trying to furnish evidence of his previous theory that
psychology does not give one knowledge about teaching. It is worth
while to note here a certain interesting aspect of human nature.
Training in one sphere of intellectual activity need not bring
ability in other spheres. The habit and power of observation or
reasoning acquired in connection with chemistry need not make a man
a good observer or reasoner in politics or philology. So we should
not be surprised that a man eminent for his scientific habits as a
psychologist should, on a question in another field, offer imaginative
hypotheses without an attempt to verify them, or to collect pertinent
evidence or to eliminate factors outside those he discusses. We may be
allowed to feel sorry. If a scientist wishes to really clear up the
question of the value of professional training, why does he not find
representatives of the classes, ‘teachers with professional training’
and ‘teachers their equals in other respects, who have replaced the
effort after professional training by equal effort after further
scholarship,’ and compare the work of the two classes? If other factors
enter to disturb such an investigation, why not carefully look at
the facts to ascertain their influence? Until he does so his dicta
will stand as mere opinions. It would be a blessing if scientific men
would use the weight of their reputations, not to bolster up their
after-dinner opinions about things in general, but to teach the public
scientific methods of studying them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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