Expansion (1945 - 1965)
The Preparation of English Teachers
The largest initiative stemming from the Commission on English was the Summer Institutes to assist in the professional training and development of English teachers.
The College Board's Summer Institute Program had at its center the primacy of academic knowledge. The Commission on English believed that advanced study of literature, language, and composition was the foundation for revising the secondary English curriculum.
According to the Commission on English, minimum qualifications for a teacher of secondary English included:
- a college major in English or a strong enough minor in English to prepare a person for graduate study in English;
- systematic post-collegiate study of English, preferably in graduate school
- a reading command of at least one foreign language
- a deep interest in literature
- the ability and habit of writing well
- knowledge of language development and recent work in linguistics
- a desire to impart knowledge
- interest in research on language acquisition and reading pedagogy
The College Board's first summer institute was in 1961 at the University of Michigan. The College Board considered this to be a planning session for future institutes.
The 1961 Summer Institute prepared 60 teachers for the 20 institutes of 1962. At the 1961 Summer Institute, participants wrote syllabi for graduate courses in literature, language, and composition, developed curricula for high school English courses, selected texts, and planned ways to relate the work of the Summer Institute to secondary school teaching.
The College Board invited twenty universities to participate in the 1962 Summer Institute. These institutions already offered summer graduate courses for teachers.
The College Board provided between 800 and 900 scholarships for teachers to attend the 20 institutes, as well as publicity and local arrangements. The universities hired the teachers, screened the applicants, and managed the institutes.
The College Board required that the universities release a faculty member for half-time during the fall semester. This faculty member would then help the teachers who attended the summer institute in enacting what was learned at the institute into their classroom and schools.
At the 1962 Summer Institute, participating secondary teachers took graduate level courses (those planned at the 1961 Summer Institute). They also participated in afternoon workshops where they related their new content knowledge to secondary teaching and where they adapted their own teaching to the subject matter, techniques, and philosophy of the courses they were taking.
The College Board ran the Summer Institutes program until 1964.
The College Board received grants totalling $271,742.00 from five charitable foundations to off-set the cost of the Summer Institutes.
| Foundation | Amount Donated |
|---|---|
| The Danforth Foundation | $160,000 |
| The Old Dominion Foundation | $40,000 |
| Victoria Foundation, Inc. | $34,000 |
| The Bing Fund | $20,000 |
| Hobby Foundation | $5,000 |
Subsequent institutes and planning conferences aimed to present the Commission on English's program and to consider the problems in upgrading the English curriculum. They also aimed to make clear the responsibilities of school administrations and of institutions of higher education for the revision of the secondary English curriculum.
The University of Iowa evaluated the 1962 Summer Institutes. The evaluation was funded by the United States Office of Education and published by the Modern Language Association.
The evaluation found that there was substantial improvement in both the academic preparation and teaching skills of the participants. The evaluation also found that secondary school principals observed an immediate positive effect of the program on the participating teacher and endorsed the Summer Institute. Participating teachers were generally given the freedom by their school administrators to experiment in their classes with the ideas and materials of the Summer Institute.
However, the evaluation also yielded more critical findings. The evaluation found that the intent to amass teaching materials created by the participants during the Summer Institute was unproductive since it encouraged quantity, not quality and busy-work, not in-depth internalization of knowledge.
The evaluation also found that participation in Summer Institutes varied. Participation by university English departments and faculty members in the Summer Institute and teacher preparation ranged from none to wholesale involvement.
Overall, the College Board format for the Summer Institute was evaluated as comprehensive and well focused. The evaluation suggested continuing the Summer Institutes and argued for continued financial support from foundation grants or the federal government.
