In-Service Training of Secondary Teachers in Minnesota

Abstract

The emphasis of modern educational philosophy on the societycentered school and the desirability of meeting child needs and interests gives added weight to the necessity for in-service training of teachers. While we have always considered such training important, it might be considered of less importance under a traditional classical curriculum where the subject matter of teaching is quite static and little attention is given to differences in interests and ability. The teacher stored up facts during her preservice training and then handed them out to the children year after year. But under a live functional curriculum, the teacher is continually forced to make adaptations in her material and practices as social changes create new needs and interests for the children. Preservice training for teachers is far from perfect and even if it were, continued growth on the part of teachers would still be necessary.The present trend in curriculum building is to provide general outlines or guides for the teacher and to encourage her to utilize community resources wherever possible as a point of departure for educational experience. Such added responsibility for selection of activities, evaluation of learning possibilities, and adaptation to individual differences requires teachers who are constant students of children and of the educative process.An atmosphere of study and experimentation is especially necessary for the large body of beginning teachers who enter the profession each year. Every good administrator recognizes the paramount importance of selecting good teachers and keeping them stimulated to work with the children in a creative way.The Minnesota Secondary-School Principals' Association, through its committee on the education of teachers, has attempted to survey the practices of Minnesota schools in furnishing opportunities for continued growth in teaching. A preliminary survey was sent to forty high schools to get a list of present practices. From this a check list was prepared and mailed out to four hundred high-school administrators, including the eighty-five members of the association, one hundred fifteen principals, and two hundred superintendents (in smaller schools), selected at random from the state educational directory. Forty-four per cent or 177 replies were received; eighty of the schools replying had an average enrollment of over three hundred, and ninetyseven had enrollments under three hundred. The average enrollment