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History of Teacher Education at Oberlin College
By 1846, education was recognized as a distinct field of study when a teacher’s department was added to the Collegiate, Female, Theological, and Preparatory departments of Oberlin Collegiate Institute, as Oberlin College was known until 1850. Many Oberlin women became famous educators. In 1862, Mary Jane Patterson became the first African American woman to receive a college degree. She later taught school in Washington, DC, and there became the first woman principal of M Street High School, now known as Dunbar High School, DC’s first public high school for African Americans. An 1865 graduate of Oberlin, Frances Jackson Coppin, became principal of the Institute for Colored Youth, a college preparatory school for African Americans in Philadelphia. Anna Julia Cooper graduated from Oberlin in 1884 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. She later earned master’s and doctoral degrees, and was one of the 20th century’s most influential educators. Cooper followed Mary Jane Patterson to Dunbar High School, where she spent nearly 40 years as a teacher and principal, educating many of its famous African Americans graduates. She was a prominent essayist and advocate for the rights of women and African Americans. In the 1890s, a Department of Pedagogy was established, with the Superintendent of Oberlin Public Schools as head. In 1914, Oberlin was recognized by the State of Ohio as an “approved” institution for certification of graduates who had met professional requirements for teaching careers In 1921, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music became a pioneer in the field of music education by initiating the first four-year degree in music education offered in the United States. Oberlin was among the first music schools in Ohio to be empowered by the state of Ohio to grant teacher certification. In 1952, Oberlin established the first library specifically devoted to music education materials—the Karl W. Gherkins Memorial Music Education Library. Currently, the Conservatory of Music offers programs that lead to the Master of Music Education, and the Master of Music in Teaching.
In 1960, with a grant from the Ford Foundation, the Oberlin Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) Program began preparing liberal arts graduates for careers in secondary school teaching. The College added a Master of Arts in Teaching in Elementary Education in 1964. This program attracted graduates of liberal arts colleges with excellent course offerings and an intensive internship experience. By 1970, a combination of circumstances made it difficult to sustain the Master of Arts in Teaching Program, and it was suspended a year later. Despite the loss of the M.A.T. Program at Oberlin, the College of Arts and Sciences continued to train certified teachers for secondary schools throughout most of the 1970s. Finally, in 1978, because of complex state regulations and because the number of required pedagogy courses limited students from taking enough courses in their areas of concentration, the Education Department was dissolved. |
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