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; however, in some places the term normal school is still used.
In 1685, John Baptist 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. The first public normal school in the United States was founded in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1839. 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 enrolls more than 26,000 students and has its own university press but still issues most of its bachelor degrees in education. Similarly, the town of Normal, Illinois takes its names from the former name of Illinois State University.
Many famous state universities such as the University of California, Los Angeles were founded as normal schools. In Canada such institutions were typically assimilated by a university as their Faculty of Education offering a one- or two-year Bachelor of Education program. It requires at least three (usually four) years of prior undergraduate studies.
Read more about Normal School: History
Other articles related to "school, normal school, normal, normal schools":
... until May 19, 1827, when he resigned to take charge of a school in North Andover, where he stayed until 1831 ... In 1831, Cyrus Peirce returned to Nantucket and opened a "School for Young Ladies." In 1832, fourteen-year-old Maria Mitchell, who later became a well-know ... She eventually became his assistant, but left to start her own school on the island ...
... Miss Richmond's 55 years of consecutive service to the Normal School began in 1866, when M.A ... Sarah Richmond was made Vice Principal of the Normal School, and by 1909, at age 66, Miss Richmond became the School's first female principal ... She remained principal until 1917 when she resigned to become Dean of the school ...
... new teachers, Hayden used his connection with Armstrong to lobby for the Territorial Normal School ... Hayden even favored the normal school over the fiscally more lucrative insane asylum, arguing "Stockton, California was known to most people only as the place where insane people are confined" and ... The normal school established in Tempe is now Arizona State University ...
... New Brunswick Teachers' College (formerly "normal school") Nova Scotia Teachers College (formerly "normal school") Ottawa Normal School Regina Normal School Toronto Normal ...
... Early normal schools in Latin America include several in Mexico, such as the Escuela Normal de Enseñanza Mutua de Oaxaca (1824), the Escuela Normal Mixta de San Luis Potosí (1849 ... The Mexican normal school system was nationalized and reorganized by the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Secretariat of Public Education) under José Vasconcelos in 1921 ... Perhaps the oldest continually operating normal school in Latin America is the Escuela Normal Superior José Abelardo Núñez, founded in Santiago, Chile, in 1842 as the Escuela de ...
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