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Friedrich Diesterweg: "An Educator's Little Book of Crabs" (1856)

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10. How to Transform Teachers into Trainers

1. Prepare them for the course for student teachers through the word-for-word memorization of books of biblical history (300 to 500 pages of Zahn, Preuß, Otto Schulz, and similarly detailed works), 30 to 50 or 80 church hymns, along with a corresponding dose of biblical sayings, psalms, excerpts, etc.!
2. In the course for student teachers, train them ad hoc!
3. Keep them away from all educational material (world history, natural sciences, German literature, etc.)!
4. Make practicing the catechism such a regular part of instruction at so early an age that it becomes an automatic behavior for them!
5. Demand from school children the complete word-for-word memorization of a great number of religious materials and judge the school and the teacher according to their performance!
6. Dictate to them the books and journals they should read!
7. Forbid them to make contact with intellectually awakened colleagues and free associations!
8. Do not merely place them under the supervision of strictly religious theologians (the so-called confessionalists), but also let these theologians direct the official teacher associations to ensure conformity!
9. Deny them the right to assume honorary positions in their communities and churches, and the right to participate in the deliberations of their school directorship.
10. Overburden the schools with too many students (80, 100, 150, 200, the more, the better!), and try to make the age range as great as possible!
11. Promote them to better positions not on the basis of their schoolwork, but according to their zeal for the goals of the church, missionary and tract societies, temperance societies.
12. Restrict their pay so that, if they live in town, they must support themselves as tutors or, if they live in the country, as farm laborers.

With these measures, a class of teachers can be formed which is able to train but not to educate, not to cultivate, and not to develop human nature.

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