The Teacher-Crisis

ADDRESS OF FRANK W. WRIGHT,

MASSACHUSETTS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION (REPORTED).

T disturbs me just a little that we should be called upon to discuss the topic of this morning's program. I am afraid, furthermore, that is is being pretty generally believed that there is a teacher shortage. There seems to have grown up a feeling that the present conditions and prospects of public education are not only serious, but critical, owing to the lack of properly qualified teachers. I have some doubt, however, as to whether conditions, at least So far as Massachusetts is concerned, are So serious as the alarmists would have us believe, or as conditions may be in some sections of the country.

Less than ten elementary schools are closed in Massachusetts today as a resut of the teacher shortage. Of course, the important question is: What training for the important work of the teacher do many now in the schools as teachers have? I admit that this question is almost as serious as that of closed schools. Here, again, I am of the opinion that our condition is not so bad that concerted effort in conferences of this kind, and within the ranks of our profession, cannot ward off what would be a menace to our schools and the state.

Our schools are open; they are taught for the most part by teachers pretty well trained for the work-though the number of immature and untrained teachers is showing a tendency to increase very rapidly.

I do not believe that our schools are unappreciated or that the work of the teacher is unappreciated. On the contrary, I am of the opinion that both the teacher and the school have public confidence today to an unprecedented degree, and the responsibility is ours to magnify the institution and the work of the teacher as a means of increasing public support for education.

Millions of dollars more are being spent this year in the payment of teachers' salaries. We are practically on a basis of $650 as a minimum salary, with thousands of teachers on higher salary levels of at least $750 and $850-much of this the result of legislation enacted a year ago. May I say that it seems that the time has come to strike the positive note, to rise to our full stature as educators, and so counteract the negative criticism that has done so much to injure the work of the school and discourage many who would otherwise enter the teaching profession.

I am frank to say that if I were a student in a Massachusetts high school and heard and read so frequently that no one was going into teaching; that the office, factory and store offered far superior rewards; that the work of the teacher was not appreciated, and that her life was one of drudgery, I should not be encouraged to enter a state normal school or college with preparation for teaching in view.

The time has come, I am sure, when we must strike the optimistic note. Perhaps much of this negative criticism was necessary as a means of arousing public opinion to the serious dangers that threatened through the low salaries paid teachers. I am confident, however, that the campaign for better salaries has been won and that the people are ready to handle this big question in a big way. Ours is the responsibility of taking the stand on the positive side, and highly resolving that better salaries will result in better teachers and in more teachers adequately trained.

The day is not gone for slogans, and a good one now would be, "Why not teach?" Take that into our high schools and answer it by pointing out to our most promising young people the great opportunity for public service that lies before the teacher. I am just old-fashioned enough to believe, too, that there is still enough idealism and desire to render public service in the young people in our secondary schools to enable us to make an appeal on this ground alone.

I came across a striking list of great names that should make Worcester County proud. It was a list of great men and women

that came out of Worcester County, and that means that they were, in part, the product of the Worcester County schools. Here is the list: Artemus Ward, Eli Whitney, Elias Howe, William Morton, Dorothy Dix, Clara Barton, Luther Burbank, George Bancroft, John B. Gough and George Frisbie Hoar. Think of it! All of them sons and daughters of Worcester County, here in the heart of the Commonwealth. I would speak of that list of names to the young people in our secondary schools and point out that the school and the teacher make such possible.

Then, too, there is the selfish appeal that can be made in recruiting the profession. For the first time, probably, it can honestly be said to young people, "When you are ready to enter the classroom as a teacher there will be an adequate financial reward for your services." Some of us began teaching at salaries less than $300 a year, yet during the past year flat increases in the towns of the state average pretty close to $300, and in the cities to $400.

May I venture to say that the time has come to point out some of the advantages of teaching and to count some of our blessings. The teaching profession will never be recruited from without; we must do it ourselves.

The Opportunity for University Co-operation

T

DR. ARTHUR H. WILDE,

DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION,
BOSTON UNIVERSITY.

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HE theme is, the maintenance of satisfactory standards of instruction is possible if have teachers in sufficient numbers, of the highest quality and with the best training. But the only guarantee that we can ever realize these conditions is to make the teaching profession as attractive as any other occupation, and our program assumes that universities may cooperate with others in making teaching attractive and assist in preparing young men and women for it.

For many years the colleges have pretended to train high school teachers but they have given them little or no professional preparation,-in fact, they have had a prejudice against appearing to prepare students for any calling. They have aimed so much at general culture whatever that may be that they have overlooked the cultural and inspirational value of a definite and comprehensive training for a given life-work. As a result most high school teachers are such "by the grace of God" and success is won by experience and at the expense of the students.

In business teachers expect to find, and often do find, stimulating association with adults, promotion in salary and in responsibility according to their abilities, broad and helpful supervision, freedom from politics and from public and private nagging, exemption from routine work properly belonging to others of less maturity and preparation, and the ability to develop specialized service in line with one's individual capacities.

In these times of economic agitation teachers, like other people, tend to magnify the infelicities of their own calling and to over

look the drawbacks of other vocations. Not all business houses, any more than all school systems, provide ideal conditions of work. Salaries in business for women-and women constitute the great majority of teachers are not likely in future to be so much better than those in teaching that the pay envelope alone should induce one to leave the profession. No more than teaching does modern business give at the end of the day complete release from labor and study. Evening classes are the order of the day for ambitious business people. Nor in business is one eternally sure of tenure and income; while there is never a surplus of teachers, business depression strands many a worthy man or woman, and the talk of the times is divided between optimism and pessimism as to the immediate future of business. If depression does come, will exteachers, the latest to enter business, be the first to go? In my judgment the enterprise, foresight, and application demanded of a good business man or woman will bring recognition in teaching or in school administration, though perhaps at present with less compensation. The charity notion of teaching, however, is passing and the future is sure to bring a more appropriate financial recognition to all educational work.

But while these things are so, we must take the situation as we find it. There is wide spread discontent among teachers, and from observation, reading, and from written replies from teachers I find the following reasons for their discontent:

Inadequate compensation-first and foremost;

Discouragement at school conditions-lack of cooperation from principals, superintendents and school boards;

Lack of opportunity for working out their own ideas, and sometimes these ideas are appropriated by superiors without financial or other recognition.

Lack of opportunity to advance in the schools. Conditions and not ability limit this advance, and when vacancies do occur, they are often given to outsiders.

Such methods as some special system of penmanship, which in the opinion of many teachers prejudices work in other fields than penmanship.