Container #243

Folder 14: Unmarked (notes and minutes of the executive council meeting 12/01/11 at the Metropolitan Club of New York City)

Resolution passes to revive the History Teachers Magazine

Folder 15: “Com. on the Preparation of History Teachers”

1. Report from the first committee on the preparation of history teachers.

General Points:

- The only general requirement for history teachers at the time is basic knowledge of US history.

- School boards are not qualified to adequately evaluate history teachers’ qualifications.

- Where college degrees are required as proof of qualification, responsibility for preparing teachers falls mainly on the State University.

- Lack of common standards is the rule in most regions.

- Local historical associations are also concerned with this problem.

- The association should not be satisfied with a minimum requirement.
Proposed Actions:

- Require at least one college history course for secondary teachers.

- Create a definition of what should constitute the college history course.

- Create a definition of what should constitute the college pedagogical course.

Appendixes:

A: Selection criteria for Denver and D.C.

B: Historical training of current history teachers in CA

C: Results of historical training questionnaire circulated to teachers

D: Additional findings of the committee

- AHA should push for standards.

- AHA should only push for standards in historical training (not education, psychology, etc.).

- AHA should advocate limiting certification to subjects in which teachers are prepared.

2. Letters explaining the growing interest in history teaching standards. (I have listed these in the order of appearance in the folder, not chronologically.)

Edgar Dawson to C.H. Haskins, 12/17/1911

Dawson responds to Haskin’s inquiry (posed to D.C. Munro—see Haskins to Munro, 12/11/1911, and Munro to Haskins, 12/08/1911, same folder) regarding whether he thinks the committee should be continued despite lack of funds, the decentralized nature of the US education system, and the renewal of History Teacher Magazine, believed by some to be perhaps the most efficient tool to improve history teaching nationally (see Haskins to Munro 12/04/1911). Dawson argues that a corresponding committee is still necessary and points to the Mathematical departments which he cites as having an “international machine” for promoting teaching standards. (Haskins did follow up on the activities of the Mathematical establishment—see Haskins to Osgood, 12/18/11, and the Bulletin of the US Bureau of Education, “Graduate Work in Mathematics in Universities and in Other Institutions of Like Grade in the United States,” both in the same folder)

Herman V. Ames et al. to the Executive Committee, AHA, 12/29/1910

Ames and five other persons, including Edgar Dawson, ask the AHA to appoint a committee to improve the deficiency and chaos of history teaching requirements. The letter is also endorsed by a vote of the Conference of History Teachers. According to the note on the back of the letter, this copy was left for Haskins and it is unclear if the letter was actually presented to the AHA Exec. Com., although Haskins does confirm that Dawson was “the most active mover” in drumming up support for such a committee at the AHA meeting in Indianapolis that year (see unattributed notes on Indianapolis’s Claypool Hotel letterhead that might be Dawson’s, Haskins to Sloane, 02/09/1911, and Haskins to Munro, 02/14/1911, same folder).

Dawson to Haskins, 01/02/1910

Dawson explains that while teaching at Princeton, he was offered the first professorship in history at the Normal College of the City of New York and asked to build a department. He explains that he was unable to find a standard for educating or accrediting teachers and realized a great need for such standards. In a handwritten postscript he also suggests doing away with normal schools, which he calls a “disgrace to our whole system of education.”

3. Actions taken by the AHA in response to the committee’s report

AHA expressed approval of the committee’s findings (see the record of the Council’s vote dated 12/29/1911, same folder).

The committee was reappointed with the same members and with the power to expand its membership, provided that there would be no endorsement of teaching standards without the Association’s approval. (see Haskins to Munro, 01/04/1912, Haskins to Dawson???, 01/04/1912, record of the Council’s vote dated 12/29/1911, same folder).

$50 was appropriated for the committee’s correspondence and expenses (see the record of the Council’s vote dated 12/29/1911, same folder).

The study was expanded to consider elementary teachers as well (see Haskins to Munro, 01/04/1912).