The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1912-09-06
THE CALL FOR THE SklLLFUL
NEGRO TRAINING THE
TEACHER


The post graduate in agriculture,
one who knows the science and prac-
tical workings of agriculture, is not
the only demand of the hour in the
educational world. School teaching,
plain, old everyday school teaching
has put on new robes and is calling
long and loud for one who can keep
these robes fresh It's latest dress is
correlation. This garment is not
Partisan, it is in all its texture
American, American in design, in
execution, in production of the fabric
out Of which it is made
Now the school teacher of former
days had only to know the dress, how
1T was made or the fabric thereof
was not a part of his task. The
book, the book! That was all the
erstwhile pedagogue needed to know
1t is far otherwise now. While
grasping the principles of his text
the school teacher of today must be
able to bring the theory of that text
down to common things. The other
day Tuskegee supplied teacher for
a vacancy in city in Illinois. What
was she to teach? Arithmetic and
Grammar? Yes that Then she was
to teach sewing, class in cooking,
glass in gymnastics. She was to
organize community meeting, in
troduce school gardening, establish
prizes for those pupils who raised
the best products and gain the CO.
operation of the parents of the chill
dren sufficiently to secure from them
the money for the prizes. Gould she
do all this? She did. She had had
the training. Dressmaking and cook
ing shehad taken as trades while
studying arithmetic and grammar.
Cooking, she and every other girl
who enters Tuskegee Institute, must
take. During her last two years she
had specialized in education. This
means that she had gone out into
the surrounding community and
taught classes, that she had seen
mothers meetings organized, prize
contests in vegetable raising set ago
ing. In a word she was nowhere
caught mapping. The environment
alone at Tuskegee, where conferences
and farmers meetings are constant
ly held, would have equipped her
sufficiently to master the situation.
This young woman's story is but one
of many illustrating the modern de-
mand upon him who would go forth
as a professional teachers. Antici-
pating this. Tuskegee Institute few
years ago established a regular
course for the all round school
teacher.
The principle upon which this
course rests is that the student teach
err is a worker, worker in his class
room and worker in his communi-
ty. In his last two years in school
at Tuskegee if a student elects the
profession of teaching, he must be-
gin to take special studies in that
direction. He studies the theory of
education as handed down from Soc
rates and Quintillian, from McMurry
and Booker T. Washington In addi-
ton to this he is required to teach,
actually teach in the class room I'M
der the direction of experienced
teachers, both in the night school and
the day school He receives instruc-
ton in special preparation of les
son and in the presentation of that
lesson. When he enters the class
room and applies the theory of pre-
sentation. This is all done in Tus-
kegee Institute, which, with its 1900
students, is a big laboratory for such
work. Around the school communi-
ty are several model public schools.
These are again the young teachers
laboratory He makes trips to these
and sees how such schools are con-
Quoted. Finally, through special ar
rangement, he is required to go out
and teach i'm one of these for two
! weeks. In the mean time on the
trade side he is taking one trade and
observing many. His speciality may
be blacksmithing or mattress making,
yet in the course of two or three
years he picks up knowledge of the
various kinds of farming, points on
electricity, on shoemaking and on
many other of the thirty-seven
branches of industry taught at Tus
kegee Institute.
But how does he gain any respec-
table knowledge of so many trades?
Through correlation in mathematics
he measures floors, and walls of the
class room. liver there a brick
building is being erected. Forth he
goes with his whole class and mathe.
MATES teacher and makes compute
tions on brick, the mortar, the ref
tiers, shingles and the like. In his
] nnnnra nhu alag he stndins the oct.