Normal College

A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Most such schools are now denominated "teachers' colleges".

In 1685, St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, founded what is generally considered the first normal school, the École Normale, in Reims, Champagne, France. The term "normal" herein refers to the goal of these institutions to instill and reinforce particular norms within students. Such a project was critical given the exigencies of the new industrialized economy of the time and, its need for a reliable, reproducible and uniform work force. Norms included historically specific behavioral norms of the time, as well as norms that reinforced targeted societal values, ideologies and dominant narratives in the form of curriculum. The process of instating such norms within students depended upon the first uniform, formalized national educational curriculum. "Normal schools," as teacher training schools, were tasked with both developing this new curriculum and, developing the techniques through which teachers would instill these ideas, behaviors and values in the minds of their students.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, normal schools in the United States and Canada trained teachers for primary schools, while in Europe normal schools educated teachers for primary, secondary and tertiary schools.

The first public normal school in the United States was founded in Concord, Vermont, by Samuel Read Hall in 1823 to train teachers. In 1839, another normal school was established in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; it evolved into Framingham State University. Many famous state universities, such as the University of California, Los Angeles, were founded as normal schools. In Canada, such institutions were typically assimilated by a university as the latter's Faculty of Education, offering a one- or two-year Bachelor of Education degree. It requires at least three, but usually four, years of prior undergraduate study.

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