January winding down

Well, it's interesting to see that all I have to do to get a lot of comments is to post a picture of pus. Glad so many of you enjoyed it!

I've been spending about as much time as I can stand to be on the computer doing family history research. There are several threads at many time depths and in different parts of the country that I am pursuing, with varied success. Today I was trying to find out about my great-grandmother who, family lore has it, was one of the first trained kindergarten teachers in the state of Michigan. In the course of that I found out about "normal school"--the teacher colleges of the time.

At the end of the 19th century (just before my ancestor would've been training), there was, at the Michigan Normal School, a disagreement about what the primary approach of the institution should be. Should the focus be on pedagogy and teaching students how to teach? Or should the focus be on giving the students a broad educational foundation?

It struck me as funny because the same debate continues today and it seems that the answer keeps swinging back and forth as to which is more important.