Johann herbart contribution to education

5.4 Improved Teacher Training and Professionalism

Teacher training benefited from a strengthening of the curriculum and standards at the normal schools. Additionally, at the same time that the number of colleges and universities was increasing, and the role of the university evolving, many universities also established departments of pedagogy or teacher education. The entry of the universities into teacher training brought a movement to develop a science of education and a scientific approach to the learning process. The work of Johann Herbart was a major contribution to this movement.

Strengthening of the Normal School Curriculum and Standards

Between the end of the Civil War and 1900, the number of normal schools exploded from 50 to nearly 350. Unfortunately, in many of these institutions the academic background of both the faculty and students precluded them from teaching or studying at a collegiate level: High school completion was seldom required for admission, and the majority of instructors did not hold a college degree themselves (Diener, 2008). The majority of these institutions focused on the technical training of teachers rather than providing a broad liberal education.

However, as the new century advanced, improvements in the quality of faculties, students, and facilities were matched by an expansion of the curriculum. A burgeoning population had created an increased demand for elementary and common school teachers, while the secondary school movement created a concomitant demand for secondary teachers. Normal schools began to broaden their curricula to include the training of secondary school teachers, and they began to require high school completion for admission and college degrees for faculty.

During the second and third decades of the 20th century, normal schools, responding in part to competition from colleges and universities entering teacher training (described in the next section), expanded their programs from 2, to 3, and eventually to 4 years. By this time many of them were beginning to call themselves state teachers' colleges and offering B.A. degrees.

The passage of teacher certification statutes that specified the amount and type of training required of teachers contributed to this move, as did the requirement by accrediting agencies that secondary school teachers have bachelor's degrees. Between 1911 and 1930, there were 88 such conversions (Tyack, 1967). In time, with the broadening of the curriculum to embrace many of the liberal arts, the "teacher" designation was dropped and most became simply "state colleges." Some of these former normal schools have become among the largest and most respected universities in the United States.

Universities Enter Teacher Training

Paralleling the development and growth of teachers' colleges was the establishment of departments or chairs of pedagogy in colleges and universities. Teacher training at the college or university level, typically consisting of one or two courses in the "science and art" of teaching, had been offered at a limited number of institutions as early as the 1830s, and the universities had always been institutions for the education of those who taught in the Latin grammar schools, academies, and high schools. However, they did not prepare these students as teachers per se, but as individuals who had advanced knowledge of certain subject matter.

Universities did not become involved in teacher preparation to any significant extent until after the Civil War. Their involvement stemmed from the increased demand for secondary school teachers, the entrance of the normal schools into the training of secondary school teachers (to which the universities objected), and the growing recognition that the professionalization of teaching demanded study of its theory and practice.

The University of Iowa established the first permanent chair of pedagogy (education) in 1873. Other Midwestern universities followed, and in 1892 the New York College for the Training of Teachers became a part of Columbia University. By the turn of the century, teacher training departments had become commonplace in the major colleges and universities. By 1894–1895 there were more than 200 colleges offering teacher education courses, and 27 had organized departments or schools of pedagogy (Lagemann, 2000).

Herbartianism

An important outgrowth of the involvement of universities in teacher education was the movement to develop a science of education and the scientific investigation of educational problems. One of the earliest contributors to this movement was the German philosopher and educator, Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841).

Herbart believed that the development of character was the primary goal of education, and that this could best be achieved by a scientific approach to the learning process that placed greater emphasis on the development of ideas and less on emotion and feeling.

Herbart proposed, much along the lines of current thinking in brain research, that learning takes place through the process of apperception, by which the child interprets new information in light of past experiences. By this process two or more ideas become related and will relate to future ideas or experiences. Thus, teaching must ensure the association of ideas by making sure the student understands how new material is related to previous material. Because instruction is most successful if it stimulates interest, the curriculum should be directed at arousing student enthusiasm. Such an approach, with its emphasis on the relationship of concepts and information, was designed to break down the isolation of disciplines found in the traditional curriculum.

Herbart maintained that any suitable material could be learned if presented systematically and in successive steps. The five steps in the Herbartian methodology are as follows:

1. Preparation—preparing the student to receive the new material by arousing interest or recalling relevant past material or experiences.

2. Presentation—presenting the new material.

3. Association—relating or combining old and new ideas.

4. Generalization—formulating general ideas or principles based on both old and new material and experiences.

5. Application—applying the ideas or principles to new situations.

For Your Reflection and Analysis

How might defining education as a science change the profession?

Although Herbartianism was short-lived, its ideas and pedagogy had a profound influence on teaching methods and the curriculum, particularly at the elementary level, long after the movement itself faded (Kliebard, 2004). Herbart demonstrated not only the significance of methodology in instruction, but also, equally important, that education could become a science. The National Herbartian Society was founded in 1892 and 8 years later became the National Society of the Scientific Study of Education. Most books on teaching methods published between 1895 and World War I were pervaded by Herbartian ideas, and as late as the 1950s the Herbartian steps could be found in teacher education tests (Connell, 1980).

The Herbartians provided a well-articulated and methodical approach to education at a time when teachers and teacher education were seeking just such a systematic and comprehensive view (Connell, 1980). Before the end of the 19th century, teachers across the country began organizing lessons around the five steps. Although many of them may have done so rather mechanically, the process did force attention to methodology.

Teacher Certification

The growing public school system demanded not just more teachers but more qualified teachers trained in the most recent educational pedagogy and psychology. The traditional method of assessing teacher quality had been certification following a written examination and often an oral examination by a lay committee. However, the ability and objectivity of these panels was always suspect. In a Baptist area Congregationalist teachers might not be hired, and vice versa. In the South, prospective teachers might be hired only if they said that states' rights had caused the Civil War, and in the North only if they blamed slavery (Tyack, 1967). The written exams in most states, although free of bias, tested only what might be expected of a common school graduate and contained no questions on pedagogy.

This began to change by the mid-19th century, as state departments of education became involved in teacher certification. In 1843 New York authorized the state superintendent to set examinations and issue certificates that would be valid statewide. Indiana followed in 1852, Pennsylvania in 1854, and by the end of the century the superintendents of most other states were given the same authority (Angus, 2001). By 1921, 26 states issued all certificates, 7 states developed the regulations and examinations but the county issued the certificate, and 12 states developed regulations and questions but the county administered the examination and issued the certificate (Butts & Cremin, 1953).

At the same time that certification was being centralized at the state level, certification requirements were being upgraded. In 1900 no state required high school graduation for certification. In the first decade of the 20th century, this changed as a few states began to require high school graduation for an elementary school teaching certificate and in others the number of years of secondary school completion required for certification was increased to 2, 3, or 4.

By 1921, 4 states required high school graduation plus some professional training of their teachers, and 14 states required high school graduation but no professional training. Thirty states did not yet specify any academic requirement for certification (Butts & Cremin, 1953). Nonetheless, the trend toward increasing certification requirements had clearly begun. In the years to come, certification requirements would increasingly define who was qualified to teach and what knowledge teachers should possess.