A Study On Teacher Education In America

The United States is a country which does not have long history and exuberant cultural heritage but is good at innovation and drawing on other's achievements. As for the teacher education, the U.S. has experienced a zigzag process. It emerged in the early 19th century. During over one century's time, the American teacher education, which develops with the transformation of the society, politics and culture, experiences a process from naught to existence, from fundamental to advanced and it is developing in the direction of professionalization step by step.The U.S. government has always attached great importance to the teacher education and elevated it to the height that it concerns"the prospect and future of America"tremendously. The improvement of the education and the development of teacher profession have been listed as one of the ten education targets of America. The teacher education, especially the education of the primary school and high school teachers, has currently become the focus of the education reform in America.Based on a great deal of information, this paper is devoted mainly to a relatively thorough and detailed analysis of the American teacher education -the object of study - from the perspective of history,comparison and philology. This paper is basically classified into four parts. The first part presents a general description of the research backgrounds,present research situation and research methods, which facilitate the research and discussion in the latter part of the paper, by using the methodology of history. The second section deals with the historical development and reformation of the American teacher education. Besides, built upon longitudinal comparison, the features in each stage are concluded; The third part gives a comprehensive organization of the American teacher education from two aspects, the institutions of the American teacher education and the training of the American primary and secondary school teachers, which is also the key point of this research. The fourth part sums up the reform tendency of the American teacher education in the 21st century. Through this research, I expect that I can offer some new thinking and significant advice for China's teacher professional development and teacher education reform.