The American state normal school : an instrument of great good / Christine A. Ogren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ogren, Christine A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Teachers colleges--United States--History.

Teachers colleges.

Educational change--United States--History.

Educational change.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

x, 310 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillian, 2005.

Summary:

The American State Normal School is the first comprehensive history of the state normal schools in the United States. Nearly two hundred state colleges and regional universities throughout the country began as normal schools, yet the institutions themselves have buried their history, and scholars have largely overlooked them. States began to establish normal schools to meet their increasing needs for well-trained elementary-school teachers as part of the common school revival of the antebellum period. During the decades that followed, "normals" became more widespread and began to offer more advanced work, often to prepare high-school teachers. Normal schools gradually began to offer four years of college work, and rechristened themselves "teachers colleges" by the 1920s. As these institutions later became state colleges and/or regional universities, they celebrated their work outside the field of education and sandblasted buildings to remove the low-status "normal" label, literally erasing physical evidence of their past. In doing so, they buried the rich history of generations of students for whom attending normal school was an enriching, and sometimes life-changing, experience. Focusing on these students, Christine Ogren's book is a much-needed reexamination of the state normal school.

Contents:

Introduction: "It Wasn't Much of a College" 1

Part I Early Normal Schools, 1840s-1860s 7

1 "To Awaken the Conscience": Establishing Teacher Education and State Normal Schools 9

Part II The Heyday of the State Normal School, 1870s-1900s 53

2 "The Masses and Not the Classes": A Tradition of Welcoming Nontraditional Students 55

3 "Substantial Branches of Learning" and "A Higher Degree of Culture": Academic Studies and Intellectual Life 85

4 Teacher Education: Breathing "The Ozone of Teaching" 121

5 "Noble" Men and "Not Necessarily Bloomer Women": The Public Sphere, Gender Attitudes, and Life Choices 151

Epilogue: "Lots of Pep! Lots of Steam!" 201

Appendix State Normal Schools in the United States 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-291) and index.

ISBN:

1403968373

1403968381

OCLC:

57002306