Sizer Calls M.A.T. Plan 'Success' After 25 Years

The nation's first Master of Arts in Teaching program--begun here amid controversy 25 years ago--has produced to many qualified teachers that its director says it "must be considered a success."

In a 33-page anniversary report, M.A.T. Director Theodore R. Sizer contrasts the program's present size and influence to its early years." Sizer, an assistant professor of Education, recalls that the M.A.T. program was first suggested by Harvard President James B. Conant '14.

At a time when there was strong sentiment to eliminate the Graduate School of Education, Conant proposed instead that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences be drawn into teacher-training. In 1934 he called for a combination program, to bridge the gap between "subject-matter" and education courses, and find a compromise between the old "professional" Ed.M. and the "scholarly" M.A. degrees.

The M.A.T. program began, in 1937, with 54 students enrolled in the first class. After a slight rise in enrollment the following year, the figures began to decline, until in 1941 only 37 students were participating. "Continued suspicion and ill-will" excited between the Faculties of Education and Arts and Sciences.

Finally, when the School of Education was close to a financial collapse and faculty rift was "as wide as ever," Conant named Francis Kepple '38 Dean of the Ed School. Keppel's timely arrival in 1948 signalled the beginning of the M.A.T. program's success.

Kepple began recruiting top teachers and gave them freedom to develop their own courses. He obtained the cooperation of suburban Boston school systems for an internship program, designed to give M.A.T. students classroom experience in teaching.

With aid from du Pont and the Ford Foundation, among others, he was able to meet the competition of scholarships offered by other professionals schools. "The vigor of the campaign--for such it was--was rather unusual for an institution of higher learning," Sizer reports.

As a result of Kepple's policies applications for the M.A.T. program have more than doubled in the past five years. A study of the 692 graduates in the years between 1947 and 1957 showed further that 82 per cent of the men and 57 per cent of the women still considered teaching, their career. Of those in teaching 80 per cent were in public schools and colleges.

Almost 250 graduates are now enrolled in the M.A.T. program, most of whom are honors candidates. In the Class of 1961 one out of five was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Today, accordingto Sizer's report, the M.A.T. degree is "well established in American academia." Similar ventures have been established by Yale, Chicago Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Oberlin, and Wesleyan.

"Few argue today against the notions that a teacher must know his subject know how to teach it in the broadest sense, know something about the school as an institution and about why one teaches, and have experience as an apprentice," Sizer wrote.

"These notions, if not new in 1936, were put into an appealing form in the M.A.T. Program and have thus found a secure place in American higher education."