Normal school

In the 18th and 19th centuries, an elementary school was called a normal school and served as a model facility for teacher training.

history

The term was first used for the model school that Johann Ignaz von Felbiger set up in Sagan in 1763 when he reformed the Catholic school system in Silesia on behalf of Frederick the Great . The model of this and other Silesian schools was quickly adopted in other countries, especially in Catholic territories of the empire, for example in Austria from 1771 or in the Duchy of Westphalia by Friedrich Adolf Sauer from 1795. The concept also had an influence for France ( école normal ).

While the first normal school in Sagan was a further training facility for elementary school teachers who were already working, most of the normal schools served to train young teachers. Their concept consisted of conveying the inadequately qualified teachers to the content and methodological norms of teaching (hence the name "normal school"). In the course of the 19th century, normal schools were largely replaced by teachers' seminars in German-speaking countries.

The normal school in Münster , directed by Bernhard Heinrich Overberg , was of outstanding importance in Germany .

In many countries, normal schools are the predominant institutions for teacher training to this day, especially the escuelas normales in Latin America, which can be found in Mexico , Bolivia and other countries.

literature

• Model schools . In: Ferdinand Sander: Lexicon of Pedagogy. Handbook for elementary school teachers . Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1883, pp. 302–303 ( online ).
• A. Schiel: Normal school (model school). In: Ernst M. Roloff (Ed.): Lexicon of Pedagogy . Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1914, Vol. 3, pp. 936-939 ( online ).