The training of teachers in the United States of America — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The training of teachers in the United States of America
John Stuart Mill · en
It is a noticeable fact, that in both Training Schools and Training
Classes, the beginners usually practise first in the lowest grades.
It is considered easier to teach little children than older ones, and
less dangerous to the pupils. Indeed, the heads of many schools, far
from adopting the theory that the primary teaching should be in the
hands of the most skilled and efficient teachers, give their youngest
classes into the care of those disqualified to teach in higher grades,
on account of lack of knowledge, or want of skill. It may be urged
in support of the plan of allowing teachers unqualified for other
grades of teaching to become teachers in the primary schools, that the
knowledge actually used in the teaching of little children is much less
than that needed for work with elder children, and that certain devices
for keeping children quiet, and for interesting them, can be followed
empirically by the unskilful teacher. But this argument, instead of
sanctioning the practice so commonly adopted, would serve to show that
it is in the lower grades that bad teaching can remain undetected, and
results, rather than means, made criteria of success. Much of the
growth of the child-mind, in its early stages, depends on the teacher’s
width of interest, a width only secured by a thorough knowledge of
the subjects taught, and a broad range of subjects. This breadth of
interest not only influences the class, but reacts on the teacher; for
teachers of young children, having little necessity to make constant
intellectual efforts, stand in great danger of becoming intellectually
narrowed.
Partly as a result of the fact that most of the students in Normal
and City Training Schools are prepared for work as primary teachers,
and that others who hope eventually to teach in higher grades must
first gain their experience in primary grades, we find that much more
attention is given to primary methods than to methods of the Grammar
School. This is true not only in Practising Schools and Model Schools,
but elsewhere.
Therefore, the most rapid progress in American Education has been
connected with elementary teaching. The present movement to reform
the curriculum and methods of the Grammar School is only of recent
development.
_UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENTS OF PEDAGOGY._