Duties of critic teachers in the secondary schools of Indiana

Abstract

In order to secure a license to teach in the high schools of Indiana the state requires that each teacher in training must do supervised student-teaching for a half year, equivalent to three semester hours of credit in college. The minimum requirements are 18 hours of observation and participation together with 36 hours of classroom teaching under the supervision of an authorized critic teacher. In an attempt to find what was done by these critic teachers in helping the student-teachers to overcome their problems and to do better work a questionnaire was prepared and sent to the critic teachers of the secondary schools of the state. The study which follows is an analysis of the findings. Two general problems were held in mind in arranging the questionnaire. On the one hand, what did the critic teachers theoretically consider as their work; and on the other hand, what was actually done in working with the student-teachers as they came to their every day tasks. Eighty-three different specific duties of the critic teachers were mentioned in the replies given. These have been organized under five heads in Table I. The number of critic teachers mentioning each point also has been indicated. The table includes all the points mentioned in more than one reply. The five main heads under which the duties of the critic teacher are organized are: general problems; discipline; scholarship; personality traits; and teaching technique. The first or general head, includes ten different suggestions. The most important considerations here, according to the critic teacher votes, are those of creating a right attitude toward the teaching profession, and training students to have the right attitude toward supervisors and administrators.