The methods of training
hitherto practised have been based too frequently on the assumption
that it is possible to fashion a teacher from the outside, as it were,
by causing him to attend lectures on psychology and teaching method
and to hear a course of demonstration lessons. This plan may fail
completely since it is possible to write excellent examination answers
on the subjects named and even to give a prepared lesson reasonably
well without being fitted to undertake the charge of a form. It should
be recognised that the practice of teaching can be acquired only in
the class-room under conditions which are normal and therefore
entirely different from those existing in the practising school of a
training college. When this truth is fully apprehended we may expect
to find that the young teacher is required to spend his first year in
a school where the head master and one or more members of the regular
staff are qualified to guide his early efforts and to establish the
necessary link between his knowledge of theory and his requirements
in practice.
The Departments of Education in the universities should be encouraged
to develop systematic research into the principles of teaching and
should be in close touch with the schools in which teachers are
receiving their practical training.
The plan suggested will be free from the reproach often levelled
against the existing method of training teachers, namely, that it is
too theoretical and produces people who can talk glibly about
education without being able to manage a class.
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