From Normal School to College- and
University-based Teacher Training
Fall, 2006
EDCI658
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What Is A Normal School?
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A normal school or teachers college is an
educational institution for training teachers.
Its purpose is to establish teaching standards
or norms, hence its name. The term normal
school is now archaic in all but a few countries.
In New Zealand, for example, normal schools
are affiliated with Teachers colleges.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary,
normal schools in the United States and
Canada trained primary school teachers, while
in Europe, normal schools educated primary,
secondary and tertiary-level teachers.
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Terminology of Normal School
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The term normal school originated in the early
19th century from the France. Because the
graduates of these schools, that is, the teachers,
were expected to uphold and teach norms, or
rules, they were called normal schools.
The terminology is preserved in the official
translations of such schools in People's Republic
of China since the early 20th century. A Chinese
normal university is usually controlled by the
national or provincial government. A teacher’s
college has lower entrance requirements.
The terminology is also preserved in Europe
even if some of the original normal schools do
not serve the purpose of teacher education
anymore.
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Origin of Normal School
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Specific training for teachers was originated in
France (1685) by St. John Baptist de la Salle.
Teacher training spread rapidly in Europe as a
result of the work of August Hermann Francke
and Johann Pestalozzi and through the
influence of the monitorial system.
Germany established the first curriculum for
teacher training in the 18th cent. From Europe
the monitorial training method spread to the
United States
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Normal Schools in the United States
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The first normal schools in the United States
were founded in Massachusetts beginning in the
late 1830s, thanks largely to the efforts of
education reformers such as Horace Mann and
Henry Barnard.
In 1839, a school known simply as Normal
School, the first of its kind in the United States,
opened in Lexington, Massachusetts; it has
since moved and is now known as Framingham
State College.
Influenced by similar academies in Prussia and
elsewhere in Europe, they were intended to
improve the quality of the burgeoning common
school system by producing more qualified
teachers.
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Early Normal Schools in the United States
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First normal school west of the Appalachian
Mountains in the United States: the Michigan State
Normal School, now Eastern Michigan University. It
was created by legislative action in 1849 and
opened in 1853.
Oldest normal school west of Mississippi River was
Harries-Stowe State University founded by the St.
Louis public school system in 1857
The first state-authorized normal college to open
west of the Mississippi River was Winona State
Normal School, now called Winona State University.
Opening in 1858.
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Early Normal Schools in the
United States Cont.
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The first normal school in what is now
considered the Southwest was opened in 1879
as Sam Houston Normal Institute (now Sam
Houston State University)
The first state-run normal school on the West
Coast was the Minns' Evening Normal School,
created in 1857 to train teachers for San
Francisco's schools. It was taken over by the
State of California in 1862 and became the
California State Normal School (now San Jose
State University).
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The Transition
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In the United States, the function of normal
school has been taken up by undergraduate and
graduate schools of education; the schools
themselves were upgraded to universities
focused on meeting the needs of the region in
which they were located.
Many famous universities, such as the University
of California, Los Angeles were founded as
normal schools. In Canada, such institutions are
typically part of a university as the Faculty of
Education offering a one- or two-year Bachelor
of Education program. It requires at least three
(usually four) years of prior undergraduate
studies.
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The Transition Cont.
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The sole purpose of normal schools was
professional instruction of elementary-school
teachers, an especially strong emphasis was
placed on the psychology of child development.
Preparation for secondary-school teaching,
which demanded a larger academic component,
was still left to liberal arts colleges.
Nevertheless, by the turn of the century many
normal schools had expanded into four-year
degree-granting teachers colleges, and by the
1920s and 30s these teachers colleges,
generally supported by the public, were training
substantial numbers of the nation’s public-school
teachers.
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Transition Cont.
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Training for secondary-school teachers remained primarily a
function of liberal-arts colleges until after World War II.
The growing numbers of students and the growing need for
technical skills in the nation’s workforce led to a demand for
secondary education that traditional colleges could not meet.
Since 1945, consequently, most teachers colleges have
expanded their educational missions and become liberal-arts
colleges offering a broad general education in addition to
specialized courses in pedagogy.
In the United States, the first graduate program in education
was established at New York Univ. (1887). In the following
year the teacher-training school that is presently known as
Teachers College, Columbia Univ., was founded. Since the
establishment of those two institutions, graduate study in
education has expanded rapidly.
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The Contribution of Normal Schools
Established teaching as a profession
 Provide women with opportunities to
continue their education and to advance in
public career
 Met the demand of economic and social
changes such as the common school
movement, industrialization, democratic
citizenship
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Sources
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http://www.bartleby.com/65/te/teachert.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school
http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/normal.html
http://www.primaryresearch.org/PRTHB/schoolhis
tory/synenki.pdf
http://escholarship.bc.edu/dissertations/AAI92174
55/
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