A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

TEACHER TRAINING

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aims, materials, and methods contemplated by the demonstration teacher,
etc., the necessary guidance should be given. The observation should
be followed by conferences in which students give evidence of having
observed with understanding, and in which the significance of what
they have seen should be made clear. Students in the later stages of
observations should be required to prepare as if to teach the lessons
which they are to observe, checking up their plans with what the demonstration teacher actually does. The teacher of the demonstration
lesson should be the one by whom preparatory and following conferences are conducted. If this be impossible, the one in charge of the
observation must be present when the observation is carried on and
must work out with the demonstration teacher the plan for demonstration and discussion. Nothing can be more wasteful in the normal-school
program than observation badly planned and badly executed.
Participation means that the normal-school student, through stopping
short of actual teaching, is given some responsibility for what goes on in
the elementary school. His first responsibilities are such as require him
to deal with material things; later stages bring him into direct relations with the pupils. The placing of assignments on the board illustrates the first; playground leadership, the second. Grading papers is
an intermediate stage.
Practice teaching should also be progressive in the degree of responsibility which is carried by the student teacher. For his first attempt
he must be carefully coached and every condition should be weighted
in favor of a successful performance. Both the group placed in his
charge and the unit of teaching undertaken should be small. The
progress will be by easy stages to full-time teaching under the normal
condition of a school of the sort in which he will teach after his appointment to a position in the school system.
At every stage the student teacher must be under competent supervision. Practice does not make perfect. Improvement follows only such
practice as is accompanied and followed by definite awareness of the
nature and direction of error and the causes and nature of successful
performance. The student teacher must, as his training proceeds, become competent and ready to criticize his own teaching. But he needs
the help of able critic teachers to assure his growth in this ability.
THE COST OF TEACHER TRAINING.-In computing the cost of normal
schools, the item for training schools chargeable to teacher training should
be the difference between the actual cost of the elementary classes used
for observation and practice, including all salaries properly chargeable
to the training school, and the amount which it would cost to care for
the same number of elementary pupils in schools not so used. To divide
the cost of the schools in the proportions indicated between the entity