1861-1897
Drawn to the positive impact education can make in the lives of others, Sheldon adopted the then-revolutionary object teaching method that brought learning alive and blended it with in-class teacher training: "No such school existed in America, and the methods of instruction were quite as new as the design of the school,” he wrote. The first classes of the Oswego Primary Teachers’ Training School began in 1861, and the institution incorporated as the Oswego State Normal and Training School in 1865. Many other institutions -- from future SUNY colleges to schools as far away as Brazil and the Phillippines -- organized or reorganized under Sheldon’s Oswego Method.