Graduate School of Education Will Institute Practice Teacher Program

The Graduate School of Education, ten Massachusetts colleges, and four Greater Boston school systems have joined in a cooperative plan to train new teachers more quickly and with less expense to the prospective instructor, Dean Francis Keppel '38 of the Faculty of Education, announced yesterday.

Keppel said the program should prove schools and colleges can work together to meet the increasing shortage of teachers. The plan itself will eventually increase the number of teachers turned out by the School of Education.

"Our hope is that other colleges will institute similar set-ups, for even our increased number of graduates will only be a drop in the bucket," stated Judson T. Shaplin, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Education, yesterday.

The ten participating colleges: Amherst, Harvard, Holy Cross, M.I.T., Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Wellesley, Wheaton, and Williams will each choose a group of candidates for the School of Education. If the School accepts them they may enroll under one of three training programs. Two of the programs will operate in conjunction with a summer school for 300 students in the fourth to the ninth grades at the Weeks Junior High School in Newton, Mass.

The first group of about 100 trainees, known as "interns," all already having received Bachelor of Arts or Sciences degrees, will teach courses at the summer school in Newton. At the same time they will take seminar courses, discussing their work, from a nationwide group of 20 "master" teachers which the School of Education has recruited.

Interns Receive M.A.'s

When the summer school ends, the "interns" will split into two additional groups. Approximately half of them, while taking seminar courses here will continue to teach in Newton, Concord, Weston, and Winchester public schools; the remainder will be full time students at the School of Education. At midyears they will exchange positions and those in the School of Education will assume their partners' teaching duties. All "interns" will receive Master of Education or Teaching degrees.

Both Keppel and Shaplin feel that "internship" which has never been tried previously in this field is one of the aspects of the program most likely to induce college students to enter public school teaching, for the public schools will pay each "intern" $1,350 in return for his half year of teaching, thus helping trainees support the cost of their graduate work.

"Immediate Experience"

"The idea of immediate experience as an instructor should also make the plan popular particularly here and at Radcliffe," Shaplin said.

Another group of college graduates at the summer school will teach and take similar classes, but they will not enroll in the School of Education in the fall. Instead they will apply directly for positions in the public schools. These students further differ from the "interns" in that the School of Education expects them to have had an equivalent to three half courses in Education prior to teaching at the summer school. They also will not receive a master's degree.

Though not allowed to teach, a number of college juniors will be allowed to attend the summer school as observers.

The final group of students will not work at the summer school but will take the School's regular one year course for a Master's degree which includes some teaching practice.

The Fund for the Advancement of Education contributed a three year grant of $150,000 to sponsor this program. Previously, the Fund supported the "22 College Plan" which had all ten of the colleges in the present plan among its members. The earlier scheme provided scholarships to students from the 29 colleges who had been accepted by the School of Education for its normal curriculum.

"It seems that colleges have finally decided to stop criticizing public school teaching and start trying to answer its problems," said Shaplin.