E D U C A T I O N

The Teachers College: Obsolete? Of these schools still remaining, most are becoming general colleges in everything but name

A . COMMON CRITICISM of teacher edu­

cation is missing its mark. The critic who attacks teacher training in terms of the teachers college, reports t h e Fund for the Advancement of Educa­tion, may find that h e attacks a ghost.

In a review of the teacher training programs supported by the fund, Pau l Woodring, psychology professor a t Western Washington College of Educa­tion, Bellingham, Wash., points o u t that the number of state teachers col ­leges has dropped from nearly 300 a generation ago to a little over 1 0 0 . And as an institution separate from universities and liberal arts colleges, the teachers college has disappeared in 21 of the 48 states.

Of the teachers colleges left, s ays Woodring, most a re rapidly becoming general colleges in everything b u t name, and many plan to request the i r state legislatures t o authorize changes in their names, scope, and functions. It is Woodring's guess that within 2 0 years, or even 10 years, separate u n ­dergraduate teachers colleges will h a v e gone "the way of the dodo." T h e state college which is taking its p lace is a generalized school in which only a fraction of students are preparing to become teachers.

Only about 20% of all new teachers entering U. S. elementary and second­ary schools, therefore, are graduates of the teachers colleges. Thirty-two per cent come from private liberal a r t s colleges and universities, and 48% from public liberal arts schools. In Wood-ring's view, if changes are to be m a d e in teacher education, attention must go to all colleges which prepare teachers rather than to teachers colleges alone.

Even the remaining teachers col­leges, Woodring points out, have in­creased their liberal arts offerings, so that practically every subject taught in a liberal arts school is now available in the better teachers colleges. And these subjects are taught by men and women of the same academic caliber— those with doctorates from universities

and whose professional bent is toward an academic discipline rather than education as a profession. Evidently these changes have not caught the at­tention of the academic world, says Woodring, since teachers colleges are repeatedly charged with teaching noth­ing bu t "methods."

It is also true, Woodring points out, that teachers colleges as a group place a heavier emphasis on professional courses than do the liberal arts schools which prepare teachers. The liberal arts schools offer these courses "more reluctantly," with an eye to legal re­quirements for certification.

Emphasis on professional require­ments and on practice teaching, says Woodring, makes it impossible for most teachers colleges to require a major concentration which would compare to that usually required for an A.B. The graduate of a teachers college is some­times forced to take a master's degree in education rather than in his chosen subject, because graduate schools are often reluctant to admit him. And the student whose undergraduate work is in the liberal arts frequently cannot en­ter a graduate program in education because of his lack of professional courses. In each case, says Woodring, the student gets more of what he needs least, and has no chance to fill in the gaps in his preparation.

Fund-supported studies of this con­flict between the two traditions of teacher education—the liberal arts view vs. that of the professional educa tor -have led to the conclusion that a cer­tain amount of professional prepara­tion is needed by both the elementary and secondary teacher, legal require­ments notwithstanding. Assuming that teacher training must include both liberal and professional education and that these two must harmonize, Wood-ring offers four approaches to the prob­lem:

• Provide a fifth year of professional training and experience for liberal arts graduates.

• Encourage liberal arts colleges to work necessary professional training into their programs without changing the liberal arts program.

® Encourage universities to devise new programs which represent the best thinking of both academic and profes­sional faculties.

• Help teachers colleges to provide better liberal arts programs and to re­organize their professional courses in order to eliminate an over-provision and duplication.

• The first class of engineers of As­sumption University, Ontario, will graduate in 1961. The first year of the

! new program, leading to degrees in ; chemical, civil, mechanical, and elec­

trical engineering, begins this fall at the university's Essex College in Wind­sor. In the past, engineering students

5 took only their first year at Assumption I and then transferred to another school.

[ • The new chemical engineering ; building of Mississippi State College,

used only on a limited basis last year, will be fully equipped by the start of the fall semester—Sept. 12. The equip-

5 ment will allow demonstrations of prac-t tically all unit operations important in : the chemical industries, says Arnold J. > Gully, professor of chemical engineer-; ing and dean of the school of arts and

sciences.

• New York University's training pro­gram in nuclear engineering will be boosted by the addition of a million-volt particle accelerator, now on order from High Voltage Engineering. NYU researchers and students of reactor de-

i sign and operation will use the Van de Graaff in conjunction with the school's

' "pickle-barrel" subcritical reactor.

3 • Fall offerings at Illinois Institute of Technology include five courses in food

- engineering: quality control, unit op­erations, unit operations laboratory, public health aspects, and food engi­neering laboratory. A special non-credit course in food engineering qual­ity control will also be held, in the

' evening division only.

t ^ A course in designing and selecting ^ plant equipment is offered this fall by -* Columbia University's chemical engi­

neering department. Industrial spe­cialists will supervise problems in com­plete or partial design of apparatus—

] distillation columns, heat exchangers, s pressure vessels, pumps and compres­

sors.

4 2 C & E N SEPT. 9, 1957