Category: Education

Why were teachers colleges called “normal schools”?

THANK FRANCE; the phrase is derived from “école normale,” which was used for institutions designed to instill standards of pedagogy and curriculum in teachers-to-be, says Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs, associate curator in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the National Museum of American History. America’s first state-sponsored normal school opened in Massachusetts in 1839, at […]

Rosenwald Schools in Walton County, Florida

Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck, built state-of-the art schools for African- American children across the South. The effort has been called the most important initiative to advance black education in the early 20th century. Attending a Rosenwald School put a student at the vanguard […]