Editing Normal school (section)

{{short description|Educational institution to train teachers}}
{{redirect|State Normal School}}
{{Redirect|Teachers college|the graduate school in New York City|Teachers College, Columbia University}}
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[[File:CountyNormal.jpg|thumb|"County Normal" above an entrance to the normal school in [[Viroqua, Wisconsin]]]]
[[File:北师大西门.jpg|alt=|thumb|An entrance gate at [[Beijing Normal University]], an example of a comprehensive research university established as a normal school]]
A '''normal school''' or '''normal college''' [[Teacher education|trains teachers]] in the [[Norms (sociology)|norms]] of [[pedagogy]] and [[curriculum]].  Other names are '''teacher training colleges''' or '''teachers' colleges'''. In Argentina and Mexico, they continue to be called normal schools with student-teachers in the latter country being known as ''normalistas''.<ref name="ReferenceA">[[Tanalís Padilla|Padilla, Tanalís]]. "'Latent Sites of Agitation': ''Normalistas Rurales'' and Chihuahua's Agrarian Struggle in the 1960s". In ''México Beyond 1968''. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 2018</ref> Schools require a [[high school diploma]] for entry, and may be part of a comprehensive university. Normal schools in the [[United States]], [[Canada]], and [[Argentina]] trained teachers for [[Primary education|primary schools]], while in [[Europe]] equivalent colleges trained teachers for primary schools and later [[Secondary education|secondary]] schools.

In 1685, [[Jean-Baptiste de La Salle|St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle]] established the [[Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools]], founded what is generally considered the first normal school, the ''École normale'', in [[Reims]], [[Champagne (province)|Champagne]], [[France]]. The term "normal" in this context refers to the goal of these institutions to instill and reinforce particular ''norms'' within students. "Norms" included historical behavioral norms of the time, as well as norms that reinforced targeted societal values, ideologies and dominant narratives in the form of curriculum.

The first public normal school in the United States was founded in [[Concord, Vermont]], by [[Samuel Read Hall]] in 1823 to train teachers. In 1839, the first state-supported normal school was established by the Commonwealth of [[Massachusetts]] on the northeast corner of the historic [[Lexington Battle Green]]; it evolved into [[Framingham State University]]. The first modern teacher training school in [[China]] was established by educator [[Sheng Xuanhuai]] in 1895 as the normal school of the Nanyang Public School (now [[Shanghai Jiao Tong University]]) in [[Shanghai]] during the [[Qing dynasty]].<ref name=":2">{{cite web|url=https://www.uta.fi/cerec/educationandresearch/ChinaEduLecture/Teacher%20Education%20in%20China.pdf|title=Teacher Education in China : Current Situation & Related Issues|last=Yu|first=Tingjie|website=uta.fi|publisher=Institute of Education Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181130194526/https://www.uta.fi/cerec/educationandresearch/ChinaEduLecture/Teacher%20Education%20in%20China.pdf|archive-date=2018-11-30}}</ref>

Several comprehensive [[Public university|public or state-supported universities]]—such as [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=How UCLA Came To Be |url=https://newsletter.alumni.ucla.edu/connect/2019/may/ucla-beginning/default.htm |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=newsletter.alumni.ucla.edu}}</ref> in the United States and [[Beijing Normal University]] in China—began as normal schools and later expanded their faculties and programs to become [[research university|research universities]]. Some of these universities, particularly in Asia, retain the word "Normal" in their name, highlighting their historical purpose. In Canada, most normal schools were eventually assimilated into a university as its faculty of education, offering a one or two-year [[Bachelor of Education]] degree. Such a degree requires at least three, but usually four, years of prior undergraduate study.

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