Part II: Schools in Context

The Elitist and the Popular Ideal: Prefects and Monitors in English and American Secondary Schools
Ultimate Deterrents: Punishment and Control in English and American Schools
The Academic Preparation of Teachers
Metropolitanism and Education
Teachers and School Success in Amsterdam, London, Paris, and New York
Toward a Strategy of Urban-Educational Study
International Study of Business/ Industry Involvement with Education

Source:  M.A. Eckstein, "The Academic
Preparation of Teachers in England and
the United States," in William W. Brickman ed.,
Educational Imperatives in a Changing
Culture  (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1967), pp. 72-88. Reprinted
by permission.

THE ACADEMIC PREPARATION OF TEACHERS

The instruction is better in the foreign popular schools than in ours, because the teachers are better trained. . . . This is the main reason of the superiority, that the teachers are better trained. ¹

A common theme of recent critics of American schooling is that certain foreign countries educate their children better and that they accomplish this by superior training of their teachers. European teachers, they say, are much more knowledgeable and capable; they are scholastically superior and more academic. In addition, or perhaps because of this, the argument continues, European teachers are more capable in the classroom, more efficient, and better able to devote themselves to their proper task of teaching than are their American counterparts who tend to compensate for their lack of academic knowledge by vague concerns about the mental health and social problems of their students. The common conclusion is that the arrangements made for training teachers are to blame, and it is by dealing with these that the ills of American education may be cured.

The search for a nostrum in foreign regions has not been limited to recent years. It is true that, since the launching of the Soviet Sputnik, American educators and other commentators have discovered foreign practices in education and have had much to say after several decades of neglecting the subject. In this, they follow the well-trodden path of such great nineteenth-century American educators as John Griscom, Horace Mann, and Henry Barnard, though not always with their knowledge and insight. In other countries, too, leading thinkers and administrators in education have sought to study foreign models in order to improve their own. The quotation above from Matthew Arnold, one of the architects of English public education, is but one example of the great impression made upon observers, European and American, by Prussian teachertraining practices of the nineteenth century.

It is worthwhile testing the truth of the familiar belief that other countries know better how to train teachers. Such an attempt involves rather more than mere description of the programs students follow and the institutions they attend. The teacher in any country is the instrument used to carry out educational goals. He is the functionary through which a society seeks to achieve certain ends in its own peculiar manner. He is also a symbol of specific national and social assumptions and aspirations. By scrutinizing the ways in which he is prepared for his tasks in England and the United States, it may be possible to understand more fully not only his role but also certain additional aspects of the educational process.

The Preparation of Teachers in England

Teachers in England receive their advanced education in the teachertraining colleges or in the university departments of education. The teacher-training colleges offer a program of general academic and specialized professional training to graduates of the secondary grammar school. Students enter as a rule at 18 or 19 years of age and emerge as certified teachers three years later. They do not, at present, receive a university degree, but, instead, gain a license to teach. Most go on to teach in the nation's primary schools, with relatively few obtaining posts at secondary schools.

Of the 146 such colleges in England and Wales, 98 are provided by voluntary bodies, mostly religious denominations, and the remainder by local education authorities. They vary according to place, origin, philosophy, and practices, as well as size (most have between 250-500 students, only 20 have over 500). Thus, the nature of the educational experience must vary between institutions. However, though programs differ from place to place, they all have four major components. First, there are the main subjects, studied primarily for the continued education of the student and only secondarily with a view to learning how to teach them to school children -- half the students take one main subject, most of the others take two. Second, there are curriculum studies, briefer courses in subjects to be taught in schools, including refresher courses in subject matter and methods of teaching. Third, there is the study of principles of education, and, finally, teaching practice in schools. The time for each of these parts of the program is distributed as follows for those intending to teach in primary schools: main subjects -- 35 per cent; curriculum courses -- 35 per cent; principles of education -- 15 per cent; teaching practice -- 15 per cent. ² Those planning to teach in secondary schools spend more time on their main subjects and a little less on curriculum courses.

There is another path to the teaching profession, through the university departments of education. The European tradition that a university degree is the sole qualification for teaching, though considerably amended in the United States, still persists in England. One may teach, that is, obtain the formal qualification to do so, after completing a three- or four-year undergraduate program and gaining the first degree without any professional training at all. Today, however, about two-thirds of all university graduates planning to teach do take a one-year, post-graduate course of teacher training, during which they study principles of education and methods of teaching their special subjects, and undergo some student teaching.

A word must be said about both the undergraduate and graduate stages at English universities, since they differ somewhat from American practices. Future teachers at the universities, in almost all cases, are not differentiated from others at the undergraduate level. Most students (75 per cent) select a specialized (honors) program in which they study one subject, say, history, a foreign language, or physics, for the whole three years. This is not quite as narrow a specialization as it may seem, since there are always related fields which are touched upon, particularly in the sciences where overlapping between the traditional disciplines is most prevalent. In addition, there are usually, particularly in the first year of studies, courses taken by general ³ and honors students together. Finally, the great variations in requirements from one university to another, as well as from department to department within a university, make generalizations rather difficult. But, by comparison with the American scene, the English undergraduate normally takes a highly specialized program, with few if any signs of a general liberal-arts preparation.

Of all undergraduates, about two-thirds go on to become teachers. These include nearly half the students with degrees in the humanities and about one-quarter of those in the sciences. Most will gain posts in secondary schools, the majority in the selective academic secondary schools called grammar schools. A third of them do so without further preparations proportion which is gradually growing smaller -- but the rest continue for one year in the university departments of education with their graduate program of professional preparation.

There is one striking difference between the teacher training colleges and the universities: the minimum academic standards required for admission. The public examinations taken at the end of secondary schooling, the General Certificate of Education ⁴ provides an index of both the standard required and the actual achievement of students who are admitted. As the following table reveals, the normal minimum achievement required for entry to the universities is more advanced than for admission to a teacher training college. It also represents a greater degree of specialization. However, the actual achievement of students in both groups is considerably above the minimums required. Though the standards demanded for entrance differ considerably, the actual academic standing of each group is less dramatically different.

TABLE I Requirements for Entry and Actual Achievement in General Certificate of Education Examinations of University and Teacher Training College Students

	Minimum standard required for entrance	"A" level achievement of students enrolled
Teacher training colleges	Pass in 5 subjects at "O" Level	60% have passed 1 subject
		38% have passed 2 or 3 subjects
Universities	Pass in 2 subjects at "A" level	85% have passed 3 subjects

Source: Ministry of Education, op. cit.

In concluding this brief description of teacher training in England, we should note that, though they are administratively associated, the two types of institutions award different qualifications, differ in purposes and methods, and seek rather different student bodies academically. Their histories and traditions are also quite separate. It is a reasonable assumption that the quality of the student's experiences, intellectual and otherwise, as well as their respective social and professional statuses, will also be rather different.

The Preparation of American Teachers

It is even more difficult to generalize about American practices in education than it is about those in England. The extraordinary variety of American institutions of higher education, their number, the wide range of standards, are confusing to the American, let alone the European or the comparative educator. In addition, their practices and philosophies change at a rapid rate. The universities proliferate, colleges become universities, teachers colleges become liberal arts colleges, and the titles may be misnomers in some cases. But, with these important reservations in mind, let us recall some of the major facts about the American situation.

Teachers in the United States receive their preparation in many different kinds of institutions. Three-quarters of all undergraduate institutions in the U.S. prepare teachers. Only 20 per cent of American teachers come from clearly designated teachers colleges, and the number of such single-purpose institutions is rapidly dwindling. Most teachers are prepared in multi-purpose institutions. Yet, there is a considerable difference between the traditional liberal arts college with few students planning to teach and a college or university with many different programs for the preparation of large numbers of teachers. Many departments or schools of education within large colleges are, in fact, hardly distinguishable from single-purpose, selfcontained teacher-training institutions.

As to the academic programs for future teachers and the distribution of time between academic and professional work, there is not only great variety in the country, but also great controversy. From the many analyses of college requirements and student transcripts that have been made, it appears that, on a nation-wide average, future elementary school teachers devote from 20 to 40 per cent of the normal four-year program for the bachelor's degree to professional courses (principles of education, curriculum and methods, practice teaching) and the remainder to general education. Secondary school teachers are estimated to devote about 16 to 20 per cent of the total work for the bachelor's degree to education courses. The remainder is devoted to general education and some selected major or subject of specialization.

Setting the Facts in Context

These, then, are some of the salient facts about the training of teachers in each country with an emphasis upon the academic part of the respective programs. Do they signify anything? It can be seen that the future primary school teacher in England spends some 65 per cent of her time (two-thirds of these students are women) at the three-year training college in courses specifically concerned with the theory and practice of teaching. This is a far larger proportion of time than is required at most American fouryear institutions, where the normal range is between 20 and 40 per cent. The secondary teacher from the teacher-training college also spends a much larger proportion of his three-year course on strictly professional training than does the U.S. secondary teacher. As to the English secondary school teacher who takes a university degree and the graduate year of professional training, he spends 25 per cent of his time (the final year) in a purely professional program. Again, this is well above the normal American range of 16-20 per cent.

Faced with such evidence, it is difficult not to conclude that, by comparison with the United States, English teachers for all levels devote a rather smaller proportion of their time to academic than to professional courses during their preparation. But it is essential to examine the contexts in each country before coming to any hasty conclusions. Three important aspects of the respective situations are particularly crucial.

The first general background point has to do with the populations in each country from which teachers are drawn. In both cases, teachers are selected from those who have completed secondary schooling, reaching a certain satisfactory level in it, and who have completed a three- or four-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree or some other formal certificate. Table II reveals the great difference between the respective sizes of the populations in each country who fulfill these requirements. In spite of the difficulties of comparison raised by the generally greater length of courses in higher education in the United States and the differences of standards of entry and of terminology, the proportion of the population beginning higher education is obviously some three to four times as large in the United States as in England.

The figures on admissions give some idea of the opportunities available to students. They do not show wastage during the course of study. The achievement, that is, the proportions of the age group completing higher education, reveals a slightly different picture.

TABLE II Percentage of Age-Group Beginning Full-Time Courses in Higher Education, 1958-9

	United States	England
Courses at level of English bachelor's degree	20 a	4.6
Courses in higher education, including teacher training	30	7.7

^a To cope with the problem of respective standards of entry, we base the U.S. figures upon numbers of students in the junior year.

Source: Ministry of Education, op. cit.

Wastage in the United States is three to four times as large as in England, which not only suggests greater efficiency in the operation of English higher education, but also narrows the differences between the countries in the proportion of the population in higher education. ⁵

It is quite apparent that a far greater proportion of the American population than of the English have had the benefits of some higher education. Teachers, as a subgroup of those in higher education, are drawn from a far smaller proportion of the population in England, and from one whose educational opportunities and achievements are very much above the norm. This is not so in the United States, where teachers are drawn from a group (college graduates) who make up two to three times as large a proportion of their age groups, a ratio which is growing rapidly each year. The educational status and experience of teachers in England is considerably different from that of the total population; in the United States, it is only somewhat different.

This is one important contextual difference. Another, closely related to it, concerns the pre-college experience of future teachers. In the United States college is open to graduates of a high school program who complete specified courses at required levels of achievement. The schools, in the vast majority of cases, are comprehensive in student population, if not in the curricula offered. The students of both teacher-training colleges and universities in England in most cases will have attended a selective secondary school -- the grammar school -- academic in outlook, in curriculum, and in the qualities sought after in the pupils. They will generally have entered that school at about age 11 or 12 after quite careful selection, will have pursued a program of about five to seven subjects or more for about five years until the GCE at about age 16. Then, for two years, they will have specialized in a grouping of two or three subjects -- possibly four -- either in the humanities or the sciences, at a more advanced level, leading to the second part of the GCE, the Advanced level.

The importance of this difference in secondary schooling cannot be overemphasized. English teachers have had a crucial part of their preparation and basic training in the most academic track of a selective educational system. After showing superior achievement at as early an age as 1 1 years, most of them gained entrance to grammar schools with only about 25 per cent of their contemporaries. They remained at school well after the time the law required, and, at age 17, they comprised about 17 per cent of their age group still in full-time attendance at school.

The proportion of 17-year-olds at school in the U.S. is over 80 per cent. But this comparison is more than a mere statistic. It is part of the larger fact that the pre-college experience of American teachers is quite different from that of English teachers. It took place in a school system that in theory was deliberately non-selective so far as academic achievement is concerned. Though these students, may well have gained much recognition for their academic performance, have attended special classes for the academically talented, or studied in courses with only similarly college-bound students, the process of selection was spread over several years and their educational program differed in degree only, and not in kind, from that of the majority.

The third important difference between the two cases lies in the extent to which the academic ingredient pervades studies beyond secondary schooling. English students, when they begin their work at university or teacher-training college, have had at least two years of some relatively advanced and specialized study. In fact, most observers agree that the academic standard achieved by English students at this point is generally of the level of the junior year in American colleges. The undergraduate program, as already described, is normally specialized and academic, and noticeably lacking in any "liberal arts" training or general education on American lines. Although the graduate year of professional training includes student teaching, studies of principles and of methodology also tend to be theoretical and academic in nature -- at least according to this writer's experience.

The training colleges, a little more remote from the highly refined air of the universities, nevertheless show similar aspects. The nonprofessional part of their programs directed at the student's own education, is provided in the form of one or two main subjects. These are very often pursued to a level approximating that of the university's general degree standard. The academic, specialized emphasis may be seen here too. Thus, in both university and teacher-training college, the ethos, which extends also to the grammar school, is quite evident: the cultivated mind is best formed by the study of a chosen specialty in depth.

In the United States, on the other hand, the undergraduate degree course, whether for teachers or others, is rarely a specialized program. It provides a general or liberal arts program for high school graduates, which covers much of the first two years and then offers some specialization in the major subject during the second half of the degree program. It is usually not until they reach master's degree work that American students move into the level and degree of specialization commonly found in British bachelor's degree courses. It is at this stage only that future university professors receive their basic training.

The academic ingredient, whether large or small in quantity, permeates professional as well as other studies. By English standards it is noticeably lacking in U.S. institutions at the undergraduate level; it is, by American standards, most evident in English universities and, perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, at teacher training colleges. The academic ingredient -- that is the concern for specialization in a particular subject area combined with an emphasis upon theoretical rather than applied studies -- is generally greater at the undergraduate level in England than in the U.S.

Current Trends

The comparison of teacher preparation in these two countries cannot be complete without some reference to what is being done currently and how it departs from the normative patterns already considered. But current trends are usually unclear, undetermined, and contradictory, and projections about the future are uncertain. Nevertheless, some general clues may be drawn from the present situation.

Teacher training in England has been changing considerably and in a discernible direction. The teacher training colleges continue to move closer to the universities in their administrative relationships, in the duration of courses, and in the level and kind of standards demanded of students. This process seems very likely to continue until graduates of such colleges receive bachelor's degrees. At the same time, there is a perceptible lessening of the emphasis upon academic specification at secondary grammar schools and in the university world in general. The resistance to this is strong, but the academic trend towards interdisciplinary study, the increasing demand for higher education and the growth of new universities combine to create incentives and opportunities for new kinds of undergraduate programs. Increasingly, there is the demand that teacher preparation be more related to the practical realities of the job and that, in particular, it recognize that social and psychological information and understanding are necessary. The idea is well established that all teachers need a sound academic background. There is growing acceptance that they all should possess or develop special insights and skills of a professional nature. Exactly how this is to be done is not altogether clear, but more than merely additional academic study is needed.

These developments may be seen as responses to new demands of the total social situation. The teacher of the past was either the guardian of the citadel of advanced learning -- the secondary grammar school master, or the rather lowly functionary, the primary teacher, whose job was to bring morality, basic skills, and clean habits to the masses. The "ideal" of the teacher was conceived in moral terms and he was seen as the conserver of knowledge, of tradition, of the status quo.

Today, many of these elements persist. However, as one English observer writes, teachers are "incumbents of a social role which they are predisposed and taught to conceive in traditional missionary terms, but which must be performed in the affluent society under conditions which all but transform it." ⁶

English society has been changing and continues to do so -- in the direction of greater mobility, greater consumption, and more widespread use of the educational ladder. The teacher's role thus changes: the ivory tower gives way to the market square, mediation takes precedence over conservation, and concern for process overtakes emphasis upon content.

Teacher training in the United States also seems to be changing, or, at least, is subject to powerful forces for change. The heritage of local self-determination and improvisation persists so that variety is rampant; the extension of educational opportunity continues to increase the demand for more education and, therefore, more teachers. Thus, at the same time, the search for at least minimum standards is pursued, while the need to recruit more people into teaching from every available source persists. On the one hand, new programs are being established for emergency training of all kinds (for housewives who want to come back to college, for those working men who had to leave college some years back, and for liberal arts graduates who decide to teach). On the other, the attempts to decide upon the basic, common and essential ingredients of any course of preparation for teachers are stronger than ever. So far as the latter are concerned, two developments are prominent: the tendency toward a five-year college program of teacher preparation and the growing demand for greater academic stringency in their college work. The graduate year of professional training and the five-year integrated program are both attempts to tighten up laxity in academic preparation. In the past, American higher education, teacher preparation especially, has been concerned largely with process -- socialization and social reconstruction. Particularly in the trends within teacher training, there is now growing evidence of a concern for content.

Here, again, the significance may be seen by considering the changing ideal or image of the teacher in the United States. He has been the mediator between children and adult society; the molder, not only of future generations, but also of a new society -- the great democratic experiment. But the revolutionary ideals, though still persistent, have faded. The teacher today is responsible for perfecting necessary skills, for maintaining the social system, for carrying out a more objective and conservative role. From a major concern with process, American educational thinking is moving toward one with content. An excellent example of this development is the interest in comparing academic standards in the United States with other countries, or, as in the case of teacher education, the academic preparation of teachers in England and the United States. The ideal image of the teacher is changing in the United States as in England, and the proposals to reform, to initiate, to destroy, or to mend teacher training practices are parts of the process of defining and creating that new image.

Conclusion

It is possible to compare the training of English and American teachers and to consider, in particular, the academic part of their respective programs. But it is impossible to avoid erroneous conclusions unless the two sets of practices are each placed in the appropriate context and unless "academic" includes more than particular courses of study in the program. Only then can the similarities and differences become in any way significant and enlightening. This is the first and fundamental lesson of comparative analysis: educational phenomena cannot be considered outside their contexts.

It may be surprising that English teachers devote a smaller proportion of their preparation after secondary school to academic as distinct from professional studies than do American teachers. It is true nonetheless. It should not be surprising, however, that each key word in such a comparison -- teacher, academic, professional, studies as well as other terms -- e.g., student, college, university -- requires careful explanation before the statement can convey any real meaning. The only way in which educational phenomena may be explained and compared is by examination of the essence as well as the form.

In all countries, schooling is part of the process by which the young are inducted into adult society. Teachers are given a special responsibility in this and thereby illustrate the overt and unspoken beliefs of their cultural environment. The institutions and programs of teacher preparation are also evidence of the assumptions and the goals of a given society. The fact that there are visible signs of change in detail and in principle on the subject of teacher training suggests that both the assumptions and the ends are being challenged.

In the United States, there is a historical commitment to the ideals of an open society, a high degree of social mobility, and the theory of balance of power. Americans are suspicious of special elites, professional expertise, and academic theories. Public education is intended to be consistent with these beliefs, and is provided in comprehensive schools which have sought to break down the traditional hierarchy of academic subjects. Education has been placed in the hands of teachers who reflect these ideals as a result of the selection process and the training that society has provided them. They are general and comprehensive in their knowledge, skill, and preparation. They ought not to be, according to the American way of thought, academic specialists, nor representatives of any special interest group, whether professional or other. The preparation of American teachers has been consistent with the pattern of social and educational beliefs of the country.

England, by contrast, is historically associated with certain selective and exclusive social ideals. The school system, currently undergoing radical upheaval, continues to be selective and hierarchical, giving superior status to the academics, though not as in several other European countries. Teachers are the group with some kind of specialized expertise assigned to a special position in a hierarchy of social functions. They are the guardians of a valuable currency called education, to which all may be introduced, but which only few acquire in any quantity. The preparation of teachers is, in large measure an indication of this way of thinking and a means of producing the personnel desired in England. In each case, the image of the teacher is a different one, owing to the differences in social philosophy and the ways in which schools are supposed to function.

Academic standards, educational goals, and professional criteria in education in England traditionally have been dominated by academicians and teachers, whereas the most powerful influence in the United States has been popular demand and consensus. Yet, inevitably, and perhaps fortunately, things are changing in both countries. Teachers in the United States are increasingly being asked to help the young develop specialized knowledge of an academic nature, and teachers in England are being required to do more than merely supervise the arduous obstacle course that they themselves completed quite successfully -- the selection process called education. Changes in the ways teachers are supposed to act and in the various aspects of their preparation become significant only when they are seen as part of the changing functions in a given society of teachers in particular and the education system in general.

Each country gets the teachers it wants, just as it gets the education it wants. By this is meant that a country develops methods of satisfying what the historical precedents and the interplay of current social and ideological circumstances demand. Each country, therefore, in a sense gets the teachers it deserves. The case studies of England and the United States show that they have both developed the means of selecting and training the teachers they have wanted, both have produced the teachers they deserved, and both are today quite properly, rather dissatisfied with the products. This situation cannot be anything other than salutary.

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NOTES

1. Matthew Arnold, Special Report on Certain Points Connected with Elementary Education in Germany, Switzerland, and France. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1886), p. 15. [BACK]

2. Ministry of Education (England), Committee on Higher Education. Higher Education: Report of the Committee (London: HMSO, 1963). Cmnd 2154. ("The Robbins Report"). [BACK]

3. General students comprise the remaining 25 per cent of undergraduate students whose studies include two or three subjects taken at a somewhat lesser degree of specialization than for honors. [BACK]

4. The General Certificate of Education, given by regional University Boards of Examiners, is offered at different levels including the Ordinary (usually taken at 16 years) and the Advanced (taken at about 18 years). [BACK]

5. Percentages of the age-group completing all kinds of higher education in 1961-2 is 9.8 for England and 17 for the U.S. This figure includes qualifications obtained by part-time and full- time study. Ministry of Education, op. cit. [BACK]

6. Jean Floud, "Teaching in the Affluent Society," in G. Z. F. Bereday and J. A. Lauwerys, eds., The Education and Training of Teachers: Year Book of Education, 1963 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), p. 384. [BACK]