Education

normal school A two-year teachereducation institution used to prepare elementary teachers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Mann constructed the general public-school philosophy in that public schools would be (1) organized as a statewide system, funded by local and state taxes; (2) governed by elected school boards who carried out state mandates; (3) staffed by professionally educated teachers; and (4) free of church control.

5-3c normal schools and women’s education

In addition to providing publicly supported elementary education for the majority of American children, the common-school movement had two important complementary consequences: (1) it led to the establishing of normal schools, which provided early preservice teacher preparation; and (2) it opened elementary-school teaching as an important career path for women.

Named after the French école normale on which they were modeled, normal schools were the dominant institution for preparing elementary-school teachers from the 1860s to 1920. While most normal schools were state institutions, others were part of public-school systems in large cities or were private or religious institutions. Normalschool enrollments increased from 29,100 in 1875 to 116,600 in 1899 and reached 119,000 students in 1915.

Although there were exceptions, most normal schools offered two-year teachereducation programs that were organized into three components: academic courses, pedagogical courses, and clinical experiences. Academic courses, often in the liberal arts and sciences, were related to the skills and subjects taught in elementary schools. For example, English language and literature courses related to teaching reading, writing, grammar, spelling, and literature; mathematics, algebra, and geometry related to arithmetic; American and European history and geography related to civics and social studies; and physics, chemistry, botany, and biology related to general science and nature studies. More directly related to teaching, pedagogical courses included the history, philosophy, and psychology of education; methods of instruction; and classroom management. Clinical experiences involved observation of experienced teachers in school classrooms and supervised practice teaching. In the twentieth century, many normal schools were reorganized as four-year teacher-education colleges.16

The establishment of common schools created a demand for professionally prepared teachers, and many women entered teaching careers in the expanding elementaryschool system. The normal schools prepared women for these careers and also opened opportunities for higher education previously denied them. Although salaries were

16James W. Fraser, Preparing America’s Teachers: A History (New York: Teachers College Press, 2007), pp. 27–40, 43–58. For the history of normal schools, see Christine A. Ogren, The American State Normal School: “An Instrument of Great Good” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). For normal schools in Massachusetts, see Mary-Lou Breitborde and Kelly Kolodny, eds., Remembering Massachusetts State Normal Schools: Pioneers in Teacher Education (Westfield: Institute for Massachusetts Studies, 2014).

1806 Publishes A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language

1805 1815 1825

1828 Publishes An American Dictionary of the English Language 1843 Death