Normal school
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.
In the United States, the function of normal school has been taken up by
undergraduate and
graduate schools of education. 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.
The term
normal school originated in the early
19th century from the French
école normale, because the graduates of these schools, that is, the teachers, were expected to uphold and teach norms, or rules.
The terminology is preserved in the official translations of such schools in both the
Republic of China and the
People's Republic of China since the early
20th century. A Chinese
normal university (, abbreviated 師大;
shīdà) is usually controlled by the national or provincial government. A
teachers' college (師範學院;
shīfàn xuéyuàn, abbreviated 師院;
shīyuàn) has lower entrance requirements.
The terminology is also preserved in Europe, both in the École Normale Supérieure of Paris and in the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Neither specialize any longer in teacher training, however.
In the United States
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. 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.
The first normal school west of the
Appalachian Mountains in the United States was the Michigan State Normal School, now
Eastern Michigan University. It was created by legislative action in
1849 and opened in
Ypsilanti, Michigan in
1853.
Harris-Stowe State University, now a state university in Missouri, was founded by the
St. Louis public school system in 1857 and claims to be the oldest normal school west of the
Mississippi River. 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, its creation was one of the first acts of the newly-formed
Minnesota Legislature. 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). Finally, 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).
In Latin America
Early normal schools in
Latin America include several in
Mexico, such as the
Escuela Normal de Enseñanza Mutua de Oaxaca (
1824), the
Escuela Normal Mixta de San Luis Potosí (
1849), the Normal de Guadalajara (
1881), and the
Escuela Normal para Profesores de Instrucción Primaria (1887). The Mexican normal school system was nationalized and reorganized by the
Secretaría de Educación Pública (Department of Public Education) under
José Vasconcelos in
1921.
Perhaps the oldest continually operating normal school in Latin America is the
Escuela Normal Superior José Abelardo Núñez, founded in
Santiago, Chile, in
1842 as the
Escuela de Preceptores de Santiago under the direction of the emininent
Argentine educator, writer, and politician
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. The first normal school in the
Dominican Republic was founded in
1875 by
Puerto Rican educator and activist
Eugenio María de Hostos.
On
1938 the
Escuela Normal Juan Demóstenes Arosemena was founded in
Santiago de Veraguas,
Panama. It has a rich history and beautiful architecture.
