Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

hood; is taught the materials of childhood growth, and is equipped with the technique of using these materials.

But the training of teachers in the Wisconsin State Normal Schools does not end at graduation. Through appointment bureaus, through follow-up systems, through extension and correspondence courses, and through summer schools, the normal schools of Wisconsin have in the past done much for the growth of teachers in service. But much more can be done in the future. As pointed out above, the really great teacher must ever grow, and the state normal schools will not be living up to the fullness of their opportunities for service until they become centers of professional growth and inspiration reaching into the life and the classroom of everyone of their graduates.

Objectives of the Work in Residence. In the work in residence, there are two objectives, which normal schools, because of the nature of their professional service to the state, must particularly emphasize. The first of these is the maintenance of a program of health education. This program includes, on the personal side, the teaching of personal health habits and the participation of every student in a program of athletics for health and recreation. On the professional side, it includes the inculcation of the methods of carrying the gospel of healthy living to the public school children.

The second objective to be emphasized arises from the fact that the Wisconsin State Normal Schools are training young people for a service profession in a democracy. This fact, which is also an ideal, requires not only that they teach prospective teachers the principles and aims of democracy, but that they also create conditions within the schools that will compel their students to participate in a democratic organization. The duty of a liberal arts college may end with the teaching of the machinery, the theory, and the aims of democracy, but the state normal school must go further; it must create on its own campus an organization that will include every teacher and every student in its duties and obligations of organized demɔc

racy.

Types of Normal Schools. In the development of the state normal schools in the United States, there have been, from the standpoint of instruction offered, three rather distinct types. In the first place, there have been what may be called the

review normal schools. These made the teaching of the materials to be taught in the elementary school their main business. The review courses in arithmetic, grammar and other elementary school subjects were followed by short courses in methods and a brief period of practice teaching. The normal schools of Pennsylvania were predominantly of this type up to the time of their reorganization in 1920.

In the second place, there have been the so-called method normals. These schools depended on the elementary and secondary schools for the adequate teaching of the materials to be taught, while they emphasized methodology. Schools of this type often became mere panacea- or device-normals. Ten years ago, the normal schools of New York, New Jersey, and the New England states were predominantly method normals.

The schools of the third type might be described by the word academic. These institutions depended on the secondary schools for the teaching of materials of the elementary school curriculum and emphasized liberalizing studies of college grade. This group developed largely in the states of the Middle West.

The first of these three types was neither professional nor intellectually respectable; the second type was professional, but it was not intellectually respectable; the third type came the nearest to being intellectually respectable, but it was not professional.

The Aims of Wisconsin Normal Schools. The Board of Regents of the Wisconsin State Normal Schools have come to the conclusion that none of these types meet the great aims of teacher training. They believe that the normal school of the future will be an institution of collegiate grade offering professionalized courses of college level. They believe that a normal school teacher has not met the requirements of his work until he has so organized the materials of his course that their presentation to prospective students will carry with it the technique of teaching these materials to children in the public schools. On the foundation of these beliefs, the regents are trying to build in Wisconsin a system that will meet the greatest need of its public schools, which is a well-prepared teacher in every classroom of the state.

5. REORGANIZATION OF CERTIFICATION LAWS

MANY FORMS OF LEGAL QUALIFICATIONS TO TEACH IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF WISCONSIN

Certificates Issued by County Superintendents. There are five different ways in which the so-called third, second and first grade county and city certificates may be secured in this state, namely, by passing an examination conducted by a county or city superintendent, or by taking a one-year teacher training course in a county normal school, in a department for the training of teachers in a high school, or in a state normal school.

The third-grade certificate issued by county superintendents authorizes the holder to teach in a rural one-room school, or in an elementary graded school in the superintendent's district for a period of one year. The second-grade certificate is issued for a period of three years and authorizes the holder to teach in the same kind of schools the third-grade certificate does. The first grade is issued for a period of five years and, besides entitling the holder to teach in the kind of schools the lower grades of certificate do, authorizes the holder to act as principal of a second-class state graded school.

These various certificates are issued by seventy-two county superintendents in the state and naturally there are as many different examination standards as there are county superintendents. They have only a local value, that is, they are a legal qualification to teach only in the county in which they are issued. However, any county superintendent may have the examination papers, upon which a certificate is based, sent to him, and if he finds them satisfactory he may issue a certificate of the same grade as the one issued by the superintendent who gave the examination.

Certificates Issued by City Superintendents. Third, second and first grade certificates may also be issued by city superintendents. These are good only in the cities in which they are issued. However, comparatively few city superintendents certificate their teachers, preferring to depend on the state normal schools and the other teacher-training institutions for their supply of teachers.

Certificates Based on County Normal and High School Diplomas. The thirty-two county training school boards, and the twenty-nine city boards of education in whose high schools there are departments for the training of teachers issue diplomas or certificates, and the county superintendent of the county in which such a school is located is required to issue a teachers' certificate of the grade to which the person is entitled on the basis of the standings appearing on the diploma. This may be a third, a second or a first grade. These certificates also have only a local value, that is, they are valid only in the county in which the teacher training institution is located. However, any other county superintendent has discretionary power to issue a certificate, good only in his county, based upon the standings appearing on the county training or high school diploma.

The issuance of second or first grade certificates based on the county normal school diplomas or certificates is made possible by a ruling of the state department of public instruction, some years ago, to the effect that these institutions may insert on their certificates of graduation not only the subjects pursued in the training school, but any others taken in a high school which may be required for the certificate.

Certificates Based on Normal School Certificates. The nine normal schools are authorized to issue certificates or diplomas to graduates of the rural course, and the county superintendent of the county in which the normal school issuing the diploma is located is required by law to issue a certificate the grade depending on the standings appearing on the diploma or certificate, and any other county superintendent may do likewise, thus making the certificate a legal qualification to teach in his county. Thus the diplomas issued to graduates of the rural teacher-training courses in the state normal schools have also only a local value, although these schools are state institutions for the training of teachers.

Then, as though there were not a sufficient number of different "brands" of such county certificates, the law authorizes county superintendents, in times of teacher scarcity, with the approval of the state superintendent, to issue special certificates to as many persons as are necessary to supply the schools. While the conditions surrounding the issuance of local certificates seem rather chaotic a study of the certification or licens

ing of normal school, university and college graduates reveals even greater absurdities.

Regular Course Normal School Diplomas. A diploma of graduation from the two-year primary course, the two-year grammar course, the two-year state graded course, the threeyear high school course or the three-year principals' course, after a probationary period of two years, becomes an unlimited state certificate, i. e., a life certificate, qualifying the holder to teach in any public school of the state. This may be a rural one-room school, any grade, including the principalship of a state graded school of the first or second class, any grade in an elementary graded school of a village or city, including the principalship, or any position in a high school, including the principalship, except a position requiring the teaching of manual training, domestic science, or any other special subject.

To put it a little differently, a person who has taken the special two-year course in a normal school to qualify for teaching a primary grade in an elementary school, may, after graduation, such is the wide range of the validity of the diploma, choose to take a position not necessarily in any of the grades for which she is qualified, but an intermediate or a grammar grade or a rural one-room school or a high school for which she is not properly qualified.

Why the state normal schools should go to the trouble of organizing special courses for the training of primary, intermediate, grammar and high school teachers when their graduates, according to the certification laws, may, and do, teach any grade from the first to the twelfth and any subject seems inexplicable.

DIPLOMAS ISSUED BY COLLEGES AND THE UNIVERSITY OF

WISCONSIN

But that is not all. A diploma of graduation from any regular collegiate course of the University of Wisconsin, or an incorporated college, together with a statement from the president to the effect that the holder of the diploma has completed the course of pedagogical instruction prescribed by the university or college for persons who intend to teach, becomes, after a probationary period, an unlimited state certificate qualifying the holder to teach in any public school of the

« AnteriorContinuar »