Relation of certain problems to the training of teachers in the United States, Ontario, France, Scotland, and Germany

Abstract

'Teacher training consists in the provision of opportunities for a prospective teacher to acquire the requisite body of knowledge, the professional attitudes, the teaching skills, and capabilities for future growth, which are demanded by the specific requirements of the position to be filled.' This definition of teacher training has been accepted for this study because it implies specialization. It suggests that the teacher of industrial classes needs to have knowledge, attitudes, and skills which are particularly necessary for teaching that type of class. The teacher of exceptional children will need to have opportunity to acquire other knowledge, attitudes and skills.The problems selected for study are diverse. There will be an attempt to study the adequacy of teacher training in certain countries to meet these problems. The general purpose of the study, then, is to observe, analyze, and interpret teacher training practices and policies that are related to the following problems: (1) Industrial Education (2) Education of Exceptional Children (3) Agricultural and Rural Education (4) Cultural Education (5) Religious Education (6) Education for Homemaking and Family Life. It is evident from the variety of the problems that all types of institutions for the training of teachers will be studied.The five areas, the United States, Ontario, France, Scotland, and Germany were selected for the following reasons: (1) The educational systems are varied (2) They were affected in different ways by the Great War (3) The problems are accepted in various degrees of importance in the different countries (4) The writer has observed the teacher training practices of Scotland, France and Germany in 1930 aid again in 1935 for a more definite opinion of the trends.Although comparison will be made of conditions during the last ten years, at times, statistics will be quoted which include the years 1920 -24. If the time -year period which has been chosen has not been the most progressive in educational history, it has, perhaps, been subjected to the most extreme economic conditions in the history of the countries of study.The writer is aware of many difficulties. One of these is that teacher training does not begin nor does it and in a teacher training college. The candidate for the profession is a product of a primary or secondary school system. He is thrust into a world of professional change. Before and after his formal preparation period, he is a part of the system. Throughout his educational career, there are 'out -of- school' influences that affect his teaching. While all this may be granted, to try to judge the extent to which the training colleges have advanced, relative to educational and professional changes may serve a useful purpose. Do the training colleges supplement or deter life experiences in the teacher's quest 3. for knowledge, attitudes and skills? A specific instance of this would be the relation between the Normal School of France and the apprenticeship system.The diversity of systems in certain countries makes comparison difficult. In the United States there may be forty -eight or forty -nine answers to each problem, as many indeed as there are states. Even in a single state, although there is state certification of teachers, local training colleges and those under State control vary in purpose, method and accomplishment. The Ontario study is not so difficult, because of the centralization of authority and administration. France also has a centrally organized system; yet its training colleges, although called Normal Schools, like those in Ontario, are peculiarly French. The National Committee for the Training of Teachers directs training colleges in Scotland (a body not found in the other systems studied). Thus the principal object of enquiry is to assess the importance of training colleges, in spite of varied administrative control and the variety of types, for the solution of certain national educational problems. A second object is to assess other national and geographic agencies which influence the training of teachers.The difficulty of making quantitative comparison makes certain phases of such a study seem isolated. For example it is difficult to compare provision for instruction in Religious Knowledge in various countries. The subject 4. appears on Training College programmes in Scotland and is excluded from the greater number in the United States. Also, the number of hours devoted to music is greater in Germany than the number provided for training in this subject in Ontario, but the attitudes of the two authorities concerned are dissimilar. Certain statistical comparisons that seemed possible at first had to be discarded as the problems of the study were too varied to make the comparisons.Realizing the many difficulties, the writer will attempt to analyze the problems separaruely for each country to discover their relation to the system of education and to learn the extent and nature of the training of teachers to meet the problem. An opinion of the adequacy of this training will be added.