The responses to Darwin in the normal school science and educational methods curriculum: 1870--1930

This study seeks to attain a deeper understanding of changes in the natural science and educational methods curriculum by examining the responses to Darwin's Theory of Evolution in three Massachusetts normal schools between 1870 and 1930. The educational problem this study addresses is how intellectual developments in the wider culture affect the design and goals of college curriculum and how changes in the curriculum reflect larger cultural tensions in the society. Intellectual and cultural responses to the larger conceptual shifts caused by evolution were examined.Three research questions were addressed: (1) Did the normal school science and educational methods curriculum evolve through phases similar to the universities? (2) How did the intellectual tensions ignited by Darwin influence the curriculum? (3) How did the cultural tensions ignited by Darwin influence the curriculum?The study concludes that the normal schools began to evolve in similar ways to the universities. Normal schools adopted modern scientific methods and developed specialization in educational psychology. Unlike the universities, they were controlled by the Board of Education and maintained the moral education as part of the core curriculum.The study is conceptually organized using Reuben's (1996) historiographic phases of change to examine curricular changes at Bridgewater, Framingham and Westfield State Normal Schools. The study was theoretically framed using Kuhn's (1962) paradigm shifts and defines three unique phases that capture the core beliefs of each phase. The first phase, The Whole Souled Teacher, is characterized by the paradigm of unity in education. During the phase Nature Can be Engineered, a scientific revolution occurred where new understandings of life were explored. A new paradigm emerges during the phase The Natural Selection of Citizens, which utilized new understandings of human development to modify behavior.