SECTION IV.-COMPARATIVE DISCUSSION OF TYPICAL COURSES. The preceding section presented three typical courses for instructor training. This section draws attention to some points that appear when courses of these three types are measured against some of the accepted standards of vocational education. The object of instructor-training courses.-From the standpoint of social service instructor training courses can have but one object-to promote better instruction. The community value of such courses must be measured by the degree to which they set up presumptive evidence that they can render this service effectively. Instructor training is, of course, a special form of trade or professional training when given to individuals who either have no knowledge as to teaching methods or have no ability to apply this knowledge in dealing with teaching problems. Regardless of how well these individuals may be equipped as to the content which they are to teach, from the standpoint of teaching they are novices. Instructor training courses dealing with the principles and practices of the teaching profession are "trade" preparatory courses. Where instructor training work is given on a professional improvement basis to instructors, clearly emphasized as such, it is equally evident that it is extension training as far as teaching is concerned. Instructor training versus trade training.-It has frequently been stated that any instructor has to meet a double requirement. First, he must be a master of the subject, occupation, or trade which he is to teach; and second, he must be a master of the profession of teaching. The aim of instructor training then is to equip with professional knowledge and experience those who are already masters of the subject, occupation, or trade which they are to teach. If under the conditions of employment it is impossible to secure persons who are fully prepared in the technical knowledge or manual processes of the trade, additional instruction along these lines may be included as a part of the program for prospective or employed instructors. The amount and extent of such technical instruction as a part of instructor training should, however, be minimized as far as possible through selection of the group to be trained. Instructor training versus general education.-The tendency on the part of college, university, and technical schoolmen has been to assume that no one whose occupational experience has been ob tained only through the successful pursuit of a trade or occupation could possess the necessary technical knowledge and manipulative skill required for an individual who was to teach that trade, notwithstanding the fact that the individual may have followed the occupation for years and successfully held down his job. It is equally true that the tendency in the college and university has been to overstress the value of general education as an asset to the trade and industrial teacher. While they have not gone so far as to say that it was more important for a trade instructor to use correct English or be familiar with Shakespeare than it was for him to be able to teach his job, still this statement would not be far from expressing the conscious or unconscious attitude of many collegetrained individuals in the schools and occasionally in executive positions in industrial plants. The introduction of general educational work into instructortraining courses, the objects of which are purely vocational in their scope, must be tested by the degree to which it can be shown to be of actual value in the direct instructing work of the teacher, and to the degree to which it can be shown that prospective instructors already possessing the necessary amount of general education can not be secured. Even under such conditions it would seem that the proper agencies to provide such "extension work" in general education are those organized and conducted to do such work, rather than trade and industrial instructor-training agencies. The standards of preemployment and professional employment training.—If it is to be effective, any preemployment or professional extension training, whether relating to trade and industry or to instruction, must at least meet the following conditions: 1. It must be so organized and conducted that it actually reaches the particular group it is intended to serve (in this case employed or prospective instructors). 2. The job training or the technical knowledge included in the course must directly and definitely function in terms of the stated objective (in this case professional training and information as to "teaching tools" and their use). 3. The environment must be in all essentials similar to that in which the individual under training will subsequently apply such technical knowledge and training in practice (in this case practice teaching should give real, not pseudo, experience). 4. The methods of instruction must be suited to the characteristics of the group to be served (in this case individuals drawn from occupational fields). Organization to reach the desired groups.-The national vocational education act and corresponding legislation in the different States set up a requirement intended to guarantee a certain minimum amount of occupational experience for prospective instructors in trade and industrial subjects. All State plans in meeting this requirement have set up qualifications for prospective instructors and for employed instructors. Without discussing the adequacy or inadequacy of the qualifications as set up in the State plans, this required occupational experience is assumed to afford an adequate command on the part of the instructor of the manipulative skill, trade technical knowledge, and general vocational knowledge1 of the occupations which he is to teach. In order to secure this experience it is evident that the group must be drawn from those who, at a comparatively early age, left school and went to work. An individual 23 to 25 years old can not have spent the preceding five or ten years in securing both trade training, through employment in an occupation, and any considerable amount of general educational or technical training through formal educational agencies. While such combinations do exist, they are rare. In general, the group to be reached by instructor training courses for prospective trade and industrial instructors will have the following characteristics: 1. A relatively small experience in general education beyond the grammar school, but an assumed adequate occupational experience. 2. Since between the time of leaving regular school and the time of taking up the instructor training work, a considerable time has elapsed during which the group members have been securing occupational, manipulative, and trade technical mastery by learning to do jobs, and have not been subjected to methods of instruction as used in secondary schools and colleges, they have gotten out of the habit of learning through the lecture, the textbook, the recitation, or required readings. They are accustomed to thinking in concrete rather than in abstract terms. 3. They are employed and are supporting themselves through employment and therefore in the majority of cases can not, if they would, leave their employment to take up an instructor-training course unless some special provision is made, as in the State of New York and Wisconsin,3 to finance them during the training period. 1 For further discussion here see Bulletin 52. 2 A number of investigations have shown that only a very small percentage of industrially trained foremen and workmen carried their regular school training beyond the grammar school. In many cases, of course, this general education has been considerably increased through reading courses, special courses, evening schools, correspondence schools, and general contact with others. The State of New York is at the present time undertaking to do this. During the present year a number of scholarships of $2,000 each have been provided so that one-year instructor training course in the Buffalo Normal School can be conducted with especially qualified individuals drawn directly from industry. The results of this experiment will be watched with great interest by all who are interested in trade and industrial teacher training. During the last three years a similar scholarship plan has been in operation in the State of Wisconsin. General continuation instructor-training courses.-Inasmuch as the task of training instructors for general continuation schools presents a quite different problem from that described in this bulletin, it has been deemed inadvisable to include a discussion of this subject. A later bulletin on part-time schools will contain much information that is pertinent to this special problem. Functioning instructor training.--Under the conditions set up by can be much better given through professional improvement work course must be relatively short.1 Therefore with the limited time available it is necessary that the subject matter of these courses should deal as directly as possible with the principles and methods of good teaching and their application to the teaching problems of the particular occupations of the prospective or employed teachers under instructor training. It is merely a question as to what knowledge and training is of most worth. Much desirable information which unquestionably is a more or less valuable asset to the trade and industrial instructor, as to all instructors, can not be included in preemployment instructor training courses if it is going to crowd out the more important direct concrete professional training. Moreover, such additional auxiliary information can be much better given through prefessional improvement work conducted with instructors after they have taken up a certain type of instructing work. The training environment.-The general principle that should be observed here is that the training environment for any given occupation should be essentially a replica of the subsequent working environment and not a pseudo type, and involves, of course, the question of practice teaching in instructor training courses. The necessity of such shop work in instructor training courses is generally recognized in normal schools operating a practice school and in other plans for providing practice on the instructional job and its value in training courses for trade and industrial instructors needs no special discussion. The following information may be suggestive as describing two attempts to provide effective practice teaching in connection with discontinuous intensive instructor training courses. One plan has been to have the members of the training group take charge of evening trade extension groups under the supervision of the instructor in charge of this group. The second plan has been to utilize high school or vocational school pupils in practice teaching. The success of both of these plans depends largely upon the extent to which the Obviously this part of the discussion refers more directly to prospective instructors who propose to give up their "gainful occupation " when they secure instructing positions. The case of the trade-extension instructor who continues to follow his regular occupation during the day is, of course, a distinct proposition. person or persons in charge of the instructor training supervise the practice teaching and upon the selection of classes whose regular instructors are skilled in the instruction processes and are conversant with the plan of instructor training. It follows from the application of the principle that the practice teaching should be done under normal conditions in classes which are as nearly as possible of the type which the prospective instructors are preparing to teach that the first plan is better for those who are preparing to become evening school instructors and the second plan is better for those who are preparing for the day school. As a rule the instructor in charge of trade and industrial courses knows very little about instructor training. If the training course is intended to equip for instructing in day vocational schools, the teaching conditions in evening trade extension courses with mature men, well advanced in their trades, are entirely different from those in day schools giving trade preparatory work to adolescents. Where prospective instructors are being trained to meet the teaching conditions in day schools the second plan would more nearly duplicate actual teaching conditions. The plan was used in instructor training courses in Massachusetts and was also used in connection with examinations given to applicants for teaching certificates in trade and industrial subjects by the city of Boston. Types of instructor training courses versus efficiency standards.If the three typical courses given in Section III are compared with the standards set up and discussed above, it will appear that of the three the one designated as the continuous instructor training course is organized to meet the above standards very closely since it is organized to deal only with individuals who are masters of their occupations. The content is confined strictly to what may be called applied professional content. In the case of the emergency fleet work the practice teaching was conducted under exactly the same conditions with respect to green men and training on shipyard work under shipyard conditions as the prospective instructors would subsequently meet in conducting training work in their own yards. This should apply equally well to practice training in connection with discontinuous intensive training courses as described, with the exception that experience up to date has shown that it is much more difficult to secure thoroughly effective practice teaching conditions. Type 2, page 24, differs very distinctly from the preceding type in that it is largely devoted to what must be construed as trade extension work in the trade technical content or of the general principles of teaching. It represents a course organized on the theory that the average prospective instructor was not sufficiently acquainted with the technical content of his trade to be able to give effective instruction therein. Type 3, page 26, represents the extreme situation; it calls for two |