Normal school

A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name. Most such schools are now called teachers' colleges.

In 1685, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, founded what is generally considered the first normal school, the École Normale, in Reims. 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 1834, the first teacher training college was established in Jamaica by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton under terms set out by Lady Mico's Charity "to afford the benefit of education and training to the black and coloured population."

The first public normal school in the United States was founded in Concord, Vermont, by Samuel Read Hall in 1823, which was dedicated to training teachers. In 1839, another Normal School was established in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It operates today as Framingham State University. In the United States teacher colleges or normal schools began to call themselves universities beginning in the 1960s. For instance, Southern Illinois University was formerly known as Southern Illinois Normal College. The university, now a system with two campuses that enroll more than 34,000 students, has its own university press but still issues most of its bachelor's degrees in education. Similarly, the town of Normal, Illinois, takes its name from the former name of Illinois State University.

Teachers College, Columbia University

Teachers College, Columbia University (sometimes referred to simply as Teachers College; also referred to as Teachers College of Columbia University or the Columbia University Graduate School of Education) is the graduate school of education for Columbia University, located in New York City, New York, United States. It was founded in 1887 and has been affiliated with Columbia University and the faculty of the University since 1898.

History

Teachers College was founded in 1880 by the philanthropist Grace Hoadley Dodge and philosopher Nicholas Murray Butler to provide schooling for the teachers of the poor children of New York City. The curriculum combined a humanitarian concern to help others with a scientific approach to human development. Beginning as a school to prepare home economists and manual art teachers for the children of the poor, the College affiliated with Columbia University in 1898 as the University's Graduate School of Education. Unlike normal schools, after 1893 Teachers College required all students to have a high school diploma. Its professional teacher education was considered the equivalent of the junior and senior years of college. Many early students who lacked preparation for the advanced coursework first took introductory liberal arts classes, often at Barnard College.