Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SPIRIT AND MOOD - Back in the hands of the Church again - the Golden Age of the Teacher Training School
213 chemistry. He was actively involved in the university’s botanical classification research. He came to Sárospatak in 1930 and taught here until his retirement in 1965. From 1937, he was the director of the Teacher Training School and, upon its nationalization, he taught at the secondary school for fifteen years. His biology classes were legendary in Patak. He believed in teaching on the basis of student activity. To this end, he systematically reorganized the school’s science equipment room and the garden and he devoted nearly every lesson to experiments carried out by students and observed their skills. He made use of the power of self-discovery to get his students to like and understand the dry, theoretical aspects of his subject matter. He introduced the use of instructional videos. As a consequence, he was rightly regarded as one of the best teachers in the county in the 1950s. His efforts can only be fully appreciated, if it is noted that he was the director of the school during the most challenging and most dramatic of times. Mihály Tóth was his contemporary, a fellow teacher with whom he cultivated a close working relationship. Tóth was often ill, but through his unprecedented friendliness, openness, pedagogical personality and uniqueness “he became an exemplary teacher, who lifted teaching and pedagogical education to an art and whose classes were admired by even official guests.” As a result, his name is passed on from one generation to the next by grateful Patak students. As a pedagogical writer, he achieved most noteworthy results; his textbook series “Plowing, Sowing” quickly became the most popular book among public school teachers, serving as a source for ideas. The Teacher Training School was able to fulfill its purpose in that it became a school predominantly for the poor students of the immediate region. According to József Ködöböcz’s calculations, between 1929 and 1944, nearly two thousand five hundred students studied here. Every second student was the progeny of a poor farmer or simple handyman. The children of small business owners and retailers constituted approximately fifteen percent of the students, while the children of teachers and pastors made up nearly twenty-eight percent of the student body. Students with higher social backgrounds and secure livelihood (military officer or landowner parents) appeared only as a rare exception at the Teacher Training School. In the years between 1944 and 1950, the number of students increased, one thousand seventy-three students having enrolled during these few years. Furthermore, in this period, - not unrelated to the damages of the war - the institution accepted girls, also, so approximately one of three students was a girl. Apart from this, the social make-up of the student body did not change significantly. ORGANIZED STUDENT LIFE In observing student life in this period, it can be said that nothing had changed and that it basically remained as it was, rich and colorful. There were a wide range of opportunities available to the students and - according to the memoirs - the students used them well. Various student associations continued to thrive. Among them the “Society for Religious Education”, the “Rákóczy György Association”, the College Choir and the “Transylvanian Self-learning Circle” emerged. The last two mentioned organizations allowed students to cultivate
