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
The study of pedagogy in connection with the universities and colleges
of the Eastern States is a department of work of comparatively recent
origin. The conservative attitude of the older Universities, such as
Harvard and Yale, with regard to the recognition of the claims of
pedagogy to be a science, and the needs of distinctly professional
instruction for those who intend to become teachers in higher schools
and colleges, has resulted in the fact that the training of secondary
teachers has, until a few years ago, been almost entirely restricted
to the Western State Universities. It is remarkable, however, that
since the older educational institutions of the Eastern States have
recognised education as a science, rapid progress has been made, and
one finds on surveying the work of university departments of pedagogy
as a whole certain features which, when further developed, will
possibly cause university instruction to be the most valuable means of
training secondary teachers. Among such lines of work, already begun in
these pedagogical departments, are:
i. Supervision of secondary school work.
ii. Stimulation of all teachers by research work in educational
matters.
iii. The acknowledgment by scientific workers in the field of
pedagogy and psychology of the results of teachers’ observations of
children in the school-room, as helpful to the scientific researches
of the laboratory.
iv. Preparation and stimulation of professors of pedagogy, and of
teachers for higher schools and colleges.
A very early attempt was made in Brown University, Providence, Rhode
Island, to arrange courses in theory and methods of teaching, but
the movement was not successful. Little actual work in the training
of secondary teachers was done in the Eastern States, until the
Industrial Education Association of New York City, feeling the demand
for skilful teachers in manual training, began to organize plans for
preparing them for their work, and sending them out daily to teach in
the schools. At the beginning of 1889, the work had developed so much,
not only in connection with one branch of training, but many, that the
institution gained a provisional charter from the Board of Regents of
the University of the State of New York, under the name of the New York
College for the Training of Teachers.