Christopher Dock was a German Mennonite school teacher in Pennsylvania. Today, he is remembered as a man who made many changes in the way school was taught.
Christopher Dock was the first teacher to use a chalkboard. Today, almost every classroom has chalkboard in it.
In many colonial schools, a student might be whipped for not knowing the answer to a question. But Christopher Dock said that if the student was working hard and paying attention, there was no reason to spank him if he did not know an answer. Students who misbehaved were a different matter; Dock punished children who lied, cheated or swore. He felt that a teacher should help ‘train a child in the way he should go’.
Christopher Dock wrote the first school manual ever published in America. He hoped that other teachers would read about his methods so that those teachers could improve their own schools.
Christopher Dock’s sincere desire to help young people lasted through his long life. He cared so much for his students that he prayed for each one of them by name every day. In fact, it was while he was praying for his students that Christopher Dock died in 1771 at his Pennsylvania schoolhouse.
