State Normal School Whitewater Wisconsin is the postcard I selected this month. One of the several “normal” school postcards we have. I like to think I am not stupid but the only thing I could think of as a “normal” school was that there were no mutants or super hero students.
I came to learn the normal had to do with the curriculum. “Normal” schools were institutions where people attended to become teachers. They were educated in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. The normal schools derived their name from the French phrase “ecole normale” with the first teacher training school established in France by the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 1685.
What I found interesting about this particular normal school is that they had a tradition of having a “Students’ Day”. This was a day where the entire faculty would not be present for a day. After the students realized this was Students’ Day they would elect a president and faculty amongst themselves and then the students would continue the day’s daily classes and activities as usual. I thought this was an intriguing way to test the students.
Another fascinating normal school was the Door Kewaunee County Normal School Algoma Wisconsin.
Door Kewaunee County Normal School Algoma Wisconsin
There were state normal schools in Wisconsin and then in 1899 state legislation allowed for county normal schools to be created to address the rural needs of the state. In 1918 this was the only Wisconsin normal school that was jointly operated by two county boards. Algoma was selected because it was centrally located for the two counties and was located by a railroad for accessibility to transportation.
It’s hard to believe when the school opened in 1908, nine students were turned away because of a lack of space with just a student body of 52. You can understand the interest in this school when you hear the tuition was free to county students and that if you had an 8th grade education you could enter without the need to take an entrance examination. After 1921 you had to be a high school graduate and have one year of teachers training. Things have certainly changed since then.
Nowadays you don’t see normal schools as most had name changes or were absorbed by universities. I do find it interesting to learn something about the past from postcards and to see how far we have come.
