The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1878-12-13
How to Teach the Teachers.

The College of SwarthmOre, about ten
miles by rail west of Philadelphia, has
adopted method for the training of school
teachers which already makes it, Normal
Department the object of much interest, and
which, if successfully carried out, will fur
nish a model on which the whole system of
training instructors for youth may ultimate
NAL School instruction in the ten school dis
tricts which, out of the twelve in Penn
sylvania, have State Normal Schools, is, as
is well known, carefully arranged course
Of instruction in the highest grades of COM
mon school study, to which are added
the theory of teaching and the study of
sch ul economies Practical exercises in
teaching model school are given to each
scholar in the last term of the last year, and
are set down as occupying forty-five minutes
day for each school day throughout the
course of twenty zone weeks The State Nor
mal Schools are open not only to students
who desire to become teachers, but to certifi-
Gated teachers also, from any school district
who may enter for short space of time to
Ike up any branches, or such part of the
prescribed course as they are competent to
take, if they are not able to occupy them
selves with the full course. The State pays
fifty cents week to such pupils by way of
encouraging them to take as much of the
course as is possible, as it is not necessary to
be a graduate of a Normal School to obtain
a school certificate in all of the districts of
the State. The Girls Normal School of this
city also places its practice lessons in the
concluding portion-say the last two months
of the pupils course. 1t is recognized, if
! not implied, in the administration of our
public schools, that certain grade of pro
ficiency as teacher enables candidate to
get position in the grammar schools, and
t that lower grade is sufficient for place in
the primary department. This altogether
ignores the fact that the primary depart
ment is the only one through which ma
5 jority OF the children go, drafted off from it
5 into early work, and that as it is therefore
! the only grade in which they have oppor-
D tunty to learn, the highest order of talents,
instead of the lower, should be employed in
e teaching them. Added to this is the related
a fact that in the primary department the
e whole foundation of future study, habits OF
0 thought and mental clearness is laid.
Starting out from these considerations, the
j new method of Normal teaching is based
f on the idea that the teacher should be learn
p ing to teach, by practice, portion of every
Q day in the school-week through the whole
k four years, and consecutively in every elias,
: of the primary department.
a The plan proposed by the Swarthmor,
y College, and already begun in that excellen
e institution, so fully explains the method
II that short statement of its working is pro
d badly the best way of arriving at fair un
a derstanding The study ofteaching is mad
i an elective study of the entire college cours
>, and in connection with all the higher studie
room is made for it, not in one term, but i
e erery day of every term Of the course Their
is at this college preparatory department
" of four classes, from which, as Exeter feed
e Harvard, the college classes are largely mad
& up. This is, rightly considered, such an iRl
portant feature that the college professor
'i teach or superintend the teaching in all il
classes, and it is under these professors tina
y he Normal class will get at its work. Tw
!, Normal pupils sit in each class an hour
day for specified term, observing how th
q rofessnr teaches. They watch the drift {
. very question, see ITS response in the elias
a 'ote his method Of getting at what tn
cholar knows, see what it is that keeps tn
b lass in order and gives the power of col
rol as well as all the traits, mental an
moral, displayed by each child during III
re esson They are put there to critcise, an
as as the locker on in chess sees all of the gam
We they get practical lesson in teaching vel
different from that of taking class in chars
op with no such previous observation. sittir
be two together they can compare aud sugge
'H each to the 'sher, and are mutually sssis