Holmes Urges Prospective Educators Take Graduate Study in Preparation

Seniors who think of going into teaching may be tempted to make one mistake that is so serious as to be almost fatal: They may try to get a job without the training that will enable them to make teaching a career. It is still possible for the "raw A.B." to find a position as a teacher, but it will be a position in a small public school or in a private school that takes apprentices for small pay. The larger cities throughout the country, and most of the states, require technical courses in Education and advanced study of the subject to be taught. The requirements for state certificates or for city examinations can be met in many institutions by undergraduate work, but not in Harvard College. No undergraduate courses in Education are offered at Harvard; and this is no disadvantage to the Harvard undergraduate, except as he may need a job at Commencement, for the trend everywhere is toward requiring graduate study for permanent certificates and for promotion. Harvard men who take the training offered in the University for teaching as a career will be ready to move from initial positions into better ones, qualifying for state certificates in the states with higher standards (e.g., California, which requires a year of graduate work for the secondary-school certificate) or taking city examinations after the necessary experience in small schools. In private-school work the advantage of graduate training does not rest upon the fact that it enables a man to meet stated requirements but upon the fact that it enables him to understand problems and seize opportunities to which he would otherwise be blind. The private schools do not require technical study of Education, although some of them are beginning to value it; but they favor intensive scholarship in a subject and offer more opportunity to teach in one chosen field, without the burden of teaching in unrelated fields--than many of the public schools. The new Harvard program for the preparation of teachers meets all these conditions. It puts the prospective teacher in a position to take advantage of opportunities for advancement.

The new Harvard degree of Master of Arts in Teaching is offered by cooperation between the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty of Education. As a graduate degree, emphasizing both scholarship and professional competence, it is unique in this country. It is also unique in being a degree which does not rest upon the counting of courses but upon the demonstration of fitness through performance. The standards in the subjects to be taught--Classics, English, Fine Arts, French, Germans, Mathematics, Music, the Natural Sciences, and the Social Sciences--are in general those of the Divisional Examinations in these fields. In addition, certain skills are tested separately, e.g., oral command of French or German for the teacher of either of these languages. In certain subjects graduate courses are specifically required. The standards in Education are: first, a general examination in Educational Theory; second, an apprenticeship in teaching; third, a special examination on the curriculum and methods in the subject to be taught. The minimum requirement of graduate study is one year. Most students will need more than a year to meet the standards in both fields--the subject and Education; but a good student who plans his undergraduate program with these standards in mind can obtain the degree in one academic year or in one year and one or two summers.

Harvard men who are interested in Education should consider other possible careers in the field, in addition to teaching. With the establishment of the A.M. in Teaching, the Graduate School of Education confines its own work to the preparation of superintendents of schools, principals of secondary schools, and specialists in school psychology, guidance, and other school services. Teaching is prerequisite to these careers, but students who know in advance what they want to do may go forward to the degree of Master of Education without meeting all the requirements for the Master of Arts in Teaching. Pamphlets giving details for both degrees are available in Lawrence Hall.

It should be emphasized that preparation for teaching as a career demands more than knowledge of a subject. It also demands more than knowledge of "methods". No teacher, however scholarly or however skillful, nor with whatever "personality", is capable of taking part in reorganizing a curriculum, determining general administrative policies in a school or school system, measuring the results of instruction with modern scientific instruments, or guiding an individual pupil, unless he has studied the problems involved in these undertakings. That is the basic reasons why the college graduate had better not go directly into teaching. He is not prepared to take his proper part in anything the school has to do as a school: he may get on well enough, after a little floundering, in his own classroom, but he is not a professional. If he marries and has to go on teaching in order to make a living, he may never become more than a "good" teacher. His grasp of educational issues will be at best a matter of pick-up knowledge. Teaching as a career, even if it does not lead to school administration, demands more than casual acquaintance with the major problems of education