What possibilities of making adequate preparation, are to be found in
colleges and universities? And how much preparation is required by the
Teacher's Recommendation or other standards of fitness? In search of
the answers to our questions, we may study conditions at the
University of California, for there is as good opportunity and
standards are as high in this school as anywhere in the country. The
quantity of preparation is fairly assured by the five-year requirement
for the Teacher's Recommendation, but the quality of the preparation
is not so certainly assured. With the possible exception of the
Education Department, no department considers the training of teachers
even nearly equal in importance to the production of specialists in
the subject who shall devote their lives to research. The subject is
regarded as an end in itself.
If a person were directed to make preparation for the teaching of
biology, he would be at a loss in searching for the Biology
Department, or even a department that gave a good comprehensive course
in biology. The subject as best taught in the secondary schools is
subdivided into various components, each with its special aim. The
prospective teacher has no carefully prepared course of study for his
pursuit, as has the prospective doctor, engineer, or farmer. The state
provides a specially adapted course of training for its veterinarians,
those who care for its livestock. Why not a special course of high
standard for those who plan to devote their lives to the direction of
the formative years of its children? It is probably explained in large
part by the failure to recognize teaching as a profession. The
Schools of Education throughout the country have been insisting upon
real professional training for teachers but other departments are
deplorably slow in cooperating.
In order to avoid becoming entangled in abstractions, we may choose a
specific instance to show the difficulties in the way of securing the
correct _kind_ of preparation, even though the quantity is guaranteed.
The Zoology Department (I choose this department neither because it is
worse nor better than any other, but because I am better acquainted
with the content of its courses) makes the following requirements for
the Teacher's Recommendation:
General Zoology
Invertebrate Zoology -- an advanced course which omits all
consideration of insects, and all
discussion of parasitic forms.
Vertebrate Zoology -- mainly a course in comparative morphology,
which gives no field knowledge of California
vertebrates, the most essential thing for
the high school teacher.
and one subject from each of the following groups,
Group I
Comparative Anatomy.
Cytology -- basic principles must be understood by the teacher
but he should not have to spend one whole half year
to acquire them.
Embryology -- the above is also true for this course.
Group II.
Biology of Water Supplies -- this course is primarily for
sanitary engineers.
Protozoology -- All that is necessary of this could be
incorporated in a general course.
Parasitology -- essential for health instruction and for
illustration of certain biological principles.
Group III.
Experimental Zoology } combination of these valuable.
Animal Behavior }
Heredity, Evolution, and Eugenics -- this course is very essential
for _any_ teacher.
(Required in the fifth year, the Teachers' Course, some work in
research, and practice teaching.)
Taken as a whole, the chief criticism to be made is that the subject
has been so subdivided to insure no overlapping of courses, that it
becomes necessary to take every course in order to obtain a well
rounded preparation in the field. This requires more time than any
individual can devote to it, for he must also have preparation in
Botany, Physiology, and Bacteriology and Hygiene, and in these
departments the arrangement of courses is essentially the same. The
general course in Zoology is inadequate, for it is planned for an
introduction to the more advanced courses and is careful not to steal
too much from their fund of interesting information. The aim is to lay
a thorough foundation rather than to discuss the more interesting
facts and general principles of biology, though I am glad to believe
that the present trend is decidedly in this latter direction.
Here we find adequate preparation for a teacher of _Zoology_, but in
no secondary school of the state will a teacher be employed for
Zoology alone. In high schools the biological science curriculum the
first course must be _Biology_, and it must be all-inclusive, for it
is all of the biological science that the majority of the pupils will
take. It would be a great step in advance if every school _required_
even that much for graduation.
Of the courses in Invertebrate Zoology and Vertebrate Zoology, it can
be safely said that they overlook the importance of field work. Boys
and girls sometimes have a surprisingly large superficial knowledge of
the plants and animals of their vicinity, and this knowledge is of the
sort obtained through observation of their ways in nature, that is, it
is a _field_ knowledge. The teacher must be prepared to use this to
the greatest possible extent, but how can this be expected if the
teacher knows little if any more than the children about the habits of
plants and animals. Such training would have to be obtained through
some of the field work of the Museum of Vertebrate zoology. But no
work in that department is required for the Teachers Recommendation. A
knowledge, though not an intensive knowledge, of each of the subjects
that make up the three groups included in the requirements is quite
necessary but it is out of the question for a person to take them all
unless he specialize in Zoology. Not all can be expected to major in
Zoology, and those that do will find it necessary to omit much that is
essential in the other departments of biological science. Each
department should have a general course covering fully its field of
work so that those majoring in some other department may in minimum
time gain a fair knowledge of its field. It is very doubtful if such a
course is given in any department at present.
At present only a meagre view is had of the history of Biology, until
the fifth year when it is given as seminar work. And at no time, in
any course, are the aims and relations of biology presented in such a
way as to be helpful to one attempting to plan the most valuable type
of high school course. Graduate research has been sufficiently
considered previously, and the teachers' course will be considered
last.
It will be conceded generally in thinking of the solution of the
problem that the ideal arrangement would be a real teachers' course,
at least five years in length. This could be comparatively easily
accomplished by a slight modification of the departments concerned and
their hearty cooperation with the Department of Education. The
disregard for method on the part of the former and the failure to
realize the importance of a thorough knowledge of subject matter by
the latter, can are obstacles that can be easily overcome I am sure.
The student would enter upon this course with the intention of
becoming a teacher, just as does any student enter upon his
professional course with the intention of becoming the professional
man for which his training is preparing him. Few freshmen now come to
the University of California with the intention of becoming teachers
in the secondary schools, that I admit, but the reasons and the remedy
for that are not for discussion here. Suffice it to say that when
reward is adequate, then the profession will grow and come to be made
up of the highest type of men and women.
The time of the Teachers Course is not far distant and it might be
worth while to see what could be done without radical modifications in
the curricula of the departments as they now are. For a working basis
I would like to present the following skeleton programme, which seems
practicable. In this schedule all preparation except that in subject
matter and method is understood to be included in "electives". A major
in Zoology is assumed. Each biological science department would have a
course of similar plan built about its major as a core.
First year,
Geography or Geology
Aims of science and its human values.
Chemistry
Electives
Second year,
Zoology,
Physics,
Electives
Third year,
Zoology--advanced courses
Botany,
Physiology
Electives
Fourth year,
Zoology--advanced courses
Bacteriology, and Public Health
Electives
Fifth year,
Zoology--research
History of Science
Teachers' Course, correlated with and supplementary to
practice teaching.
Electives
The reasons for selection and sequence of subjects in this schedule
are fairly evident from what has gone before, but a few points will
bear additional explanation.
A course in the aims and values of science should be introductory, for
in the absence of general knowledge concerning values, such as has
grown up with other professions, the student must be given early in
his work an enthusiasm for it and a sort of guide for future choice of
subjects for study. The difference in aim between university and
secondary school science must be clearly understood at the start. Too
often, university courses accept science as an end in itself and it is
taught from that point of view, whereas the prospective teacher must
hold to his point of view, that to humanity generally science is only
a very effective means to an end; it is just a faithful servant.
The schedule just submitted may seem to be overbalanced with science
courses, but it must be somewhat so, especially if courses are not to
be completely reorganized. Science would not need to consume quite so
large a part of the time if special courses were given for
teachers--another argument for a high grade, strictly professional
course.
Duplication of teachers' courses in special methods would be
eliminated for a single course for all of the departments of
biological science would be sufficient. Biology is the hub, and not
the separate biological sciences, in the courses in this field in the
secondary schools. The methods concerned are _biological methods_,
and therefore a single course for all prospective teachers of
biological science regardless of the nature of their major work, is a
logical procedure. Whether such a course is a success or a failure is
largely dependent on the professor in charge. In the past there have
been many failures, mainly because the person conducting it has never
had secondary school experience, knows little or nothing of the
problems, and has no sincere enthusiasm for the teaching of science to
boys and girls below the university age.
The course suggested would cover an entire year. At least that much
time is required to give any direction or instruction that is worth
while. The first half of the year might well be devoted to a digestion
and correlation of all previous work, organizing it into a form easily
useable in the work to follow. Questions of method, recitation,
laboratory and field work, textbooks and reference books purchase and
use of equipment, must be given consideration in some part of the
course. An outline course, with the separate lessons that make it up
should be worked out in detail, for some particular locality,
preferably the one where practice teaching is to be done. This should
then be carefully tested by the criteria of a good biology course, as
pointed out by the best authorities, and by _common sense_. But why
make this skeleton outline beforehand? Why be prepared in anything? It
will be too late to prepare at the moment the problem has to be met.
Few new teachers will find a well planned course awaiting their
arrival in a new field, and without previous experience a new teacher
is likely to build up a course without due respect to relative values
which comes only with a perspective of a course in its entirety. To
illustrate, in the course given by an inexperienced teacher there is
too much chance of six weeks time being spent on the study of the
grasshopper, with only four weeks left at the end of the school year
to be devoted to the biology of the human. The mapping of a course, by
way of practice, gives the prospective teacher practice in the
exercise of judgment, with helpful constructive criticism.
Practice teaching now becomes only the trying out of the course and
accompanying methods. As, one practice teacher remarked when this plan
was suggested "But, I might have to make my course all over." Such
would often be the case. Any wide-awake teacher will change his course
more or less from year to year. Even if the first plan were entirely
discarded the energy and thought prompted by its making would not be
lost. And now let us change the name given to those in charge of
practice teachers. Advisor would be more fitting than _super_visor,
for they should remain in the background except for rendering helpful
service, and making constructive criticism in excess of destructive.
In order for practice teaching to be effective there must be nothing
of an artificial sort enter in. Conditions must be of the regular sort
met every day in the teaching game. This statement seems superfluous,
but a visit to some of the classes where practice teaching is being
done will justify its insertion here. The practice teacher should not
be handed over a laboratory properly equipped. Of course, the
equipment should be available. The course should not be "ready-cut".
The practice teacher must meet _all_ of the problems and this is
cheating him out of a part of his fun. Through his solution of these
problems there will be a two-fold benefit, for the _advisor_ too may
profit by the ingenuity of the newcomer. Resignation should be
requested of any advisor who has outgrown the ability to learn. It is
most likely to be the "green" person, who will develop really new
methods, or evolve a more fitting experiment, or turn a bit of
apparatus to a new use. Above all, the practice teacher should be
required to scout for living material--there will usually be an
abundance all about him, and much that is of interest should find its
way into the laboratory. Training in the use of living material can
not be over emphasized.
The course which I have outlined in the previous pages, is not
satisfactory, but I firmly believe that it would be an improvement
over the present situation. When tried out it would show many
shortcomings, but by trial and improvement has our entire educational
system evolved. Even an ideal professional course in use today would
be obsolete tomorrow. It would be unfortunate were it not so, for
growth involves ecdysis, and growth is the law of nature.
Literature from which helpful
suggestions were received during the course
of this work.
Bagley, W. C. The training of teachers as a phase of democracy's
educational programme. Ed. Adm. & Supervsn. vol.4
no.1, Jan.'18.
Balliet, T. M. and Robinson, C. H. Training of Science Teachers.
N. E. A. Report, vol.54, 1916, pp.734-7.
Bessey, C. E. Preparation of botanical teachers. Science, N.S.,
vol.33, pp.633-9, 1911.
Boas, F. S. Teachers and research. Contemp., vol.116, pp.426-431.
1919.
Boggs, L. P. Making Teachers. School & Soc., vol.7, pp.369-74.
Caldwell, W. O. Preparation of the teacher of biology. School
Sci. & Math., vol.16, pp.385-92.
Coulter, J. G. The training of elementary science teachers.
School Rev., vol.24, pp.26-30.
Curtis, C.B. Secondary school science. Ed. Adm. & Supervsn.,
vol.3, Nov.1917.
Dewey, J. D. Democracy and Education.
Kent R. A. University preparation of teachers for high schools.
School Rev., vol.27, pp.172-85.
Lange, A. F. Preparation of high school teachers from the
standpoint of the university. U. C. A. Report, 1907,
pp.718-23.
Lloyd, F. E. and Bigelow, M. A. The teaching of biology. 1909.
Longmans, Green & Co.
Luckey, G. W. A. Essentials in the training of a teacher. School
and Society, vol.1, pp.263-9.
McElroy, R. M. Teaching teachers. Ind., vol.93, pp.525-.
Pillsbury, W. H. Buffalo plan of teacher training. Elem. Sch. Jr.
vol.21, pp.595-606.
Swift, F. H. College courses in methods of teaching high school
subjects. Sch. & Soc., vol.6, pp.691-9.
Taylor, W. S. Project methods in teacher-training courses. Sch. &
Soc., vol.8, pp.487-90.
Wieman, H. L. Teaching the scientific method vs. teaching the
facts of science. Sch. & Soc., vol.3, pp.243-5.
Williams, J.T. Teacher training in colleges. Sch. & Soc., vol.9,
pp.105-9.
Winship, A. E. Prepare rather than train for teaching. N. E. A.
Report, 1918, pp.222-6.
---- Research vs. teaching. Sch. & Soc., vol.11, pp. 684-5.
---- Research as a means of teacher training. Sch. & Soc., vol.3,
pp.243-5.
---- Reorganization of science in secondary schools. U. S. Dep't.
Interior, Bureau Ed., Bull.26, 1920.
---- Cardinal principles of secondary education. U. S. Dep't.
Interior, Bureau Ed., Bull.35, 1918.
Twiss, G.R.--Principles of Science Teaching.
Macmillan. 1917.