The Integrated Course in the Foundations of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University

Abstract

The integrated course known as Educational Foundations grew out of a concrete problem situation in Teachers College. For years there had been a requirement that every candidate for the Master's degree should have taken eight points of the thirty-two called for, in what has recently come to be named the Division of the Foundations of Education. Practically, this meant three courses chosen out of the history of education, the philosophy of edu cation, educational psychology, educational sociology, educational economics and comparative education. The requirement of so-called general courses reflected the idea that the Master's degree in Teachers College should not be a narrow, technical degree, devoted entirely to professional specialization. On the contrary, it was expected that the total experience leading to the degree should contain broadening elements?that which would lead the student to see his profes sional work in relationship to the society in which it was to be carried on and as dealing with a system of social and individual values which were to be fostered by his activity as teacher or school administrator. In the early years of the College, this broadening experience was thought to be provided through courses in the history and philosophy of education and educational psychology, but as the College expanded in teaching personnel and in offer ings many other courses came to be accepted as satisfying the requirement, so that by 1934-35 when the new integrated course was first undertaken, a student's program might show a course in the History of Education in the United States before I860, one in educational economics and still another in the psychology of adolescence, as adding up to eight points in the Foundations of Education. Under such circumstances it became difficult to show that the courses