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Supervision from the Teacher's Standpoint

MISS MARY F. BLACK, HUDSON, N. Y.

THERE is no other device in our school

system, that has done so much for the improvement of our schools, in methods of instruction and discipline as supervision. Packard tells us that as early as 1839 Providence, R. I., appointed a city supervisor with duties similar to those that are now given to a city superintendent, and 12 years later Boston established a similar officer.

A fact well established in the industrial world is that the omission of a superintendent in any industry would be regarded as sheer folly.

School work furnishes no exception to this general rule. For manual labor there is a rapidly growing substitution of machinery and therefore less supervision and more invention are needed, but for the teacher's work there is no possible substitution of machinery.

A supervisor is valuable chiefly for what he accomplishes through his influence on his corps of teachers. Hence it is better that he be chosen from the ranks of professional teachers. He should be first of all a "teacher of teachers." This implies three things scholarship, professional training and experience in teaching.

We teachers believe the professional supervisor is to gather excellent methods as he observes them and transfer them to soil in which they are quite sure to grow; that he is an adviser as well as a supervisor-he must not content himself with seeing that the work is properly done, but he must be prepared to guide the doer; that he is to be well versed in school appliances; in school architecture; with the best style of school seats and desks; with the best text-books and with the most effective methods of ventilation. All these items have a direct connection with his chief work, since

teachers are more efficient under favorable external conditions and pupils advance more rapidly when their comfort in the school-room is promotive of good health. Nevertheless, supervisors do not spend all your money on the above. Let us recall what Dr. Sheldon has written: "The key of an efficient school is not the system nor the school property nor the appropriation necessary for its maintenance, indispensable as they are. Reason, experience and the common consent of all great thinkers and authorities upon the subject agree, that the teacher is the school."

The true superintendent will care less to be seen than to be felt. It is his character and his judgment which are of importance. He will give the attention due to each of the relations he sustains-to the board, the people, the patrons, the teachers, the pupils in self-forgetfulness. I do not mention. the pupils last because I think they are of the least importance-"The last shall be first." "For the child the school exists. The need of the child enforces its right to exist."

We teachers expect a supervisor to enter our rooms quietly and to be a sympathetic and interested spectator. To give teachers not only an outline of the work of the grade but also an outline of what he considers good school etiquette. We like him to remain and listen to a recitation or to inspect the work of the pupils either at their desks or upon the blackboard, correcting faults by passing them by, that he may have time to commend their good work; giving unfavorable comments to the teacher privately.

Little children are intensely partisan. They love warmly; they hate bitterly. Rarely are they indifferent to their teachers. Hearty approval of the teacher by the

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No superintendent can afford to sacrifice. the freedom of the individual teacher. He cannot force his own opinions upon anybody. A school is the last place in the world for a dictator. "Learning is always republican. It has idols, but not masters." He may counsel but not absolutely direct; he should exercise trust in the discretion of his teachers. Hampering teachers with minute details hinders rather than helps them. Trust encourages effort and helps to establish proof of its worthy bestowal. The little that I am worth as a disciplinarian dates from a day, when the superintendent gave me to understand that he had explicit faith in my ability to cope with a certain difficulty.

Superintendents should remember that every school has its individuality, and it should be respected in making out a course of study which can be carried out intelligently. Children who come from families where books and the best influences are found should have liberty to advance as rapidly as possible. Children from families in which there is little opportunity for improvement should not be compelled to cover so much ground in the text-books that no time is allowed for work in general culture which they so much need.

The superintendent should see that children who are not ready for the next grade should not be advanced. "Children will be stimulated in a crowd if they are ready for the crowd, when not ready for the crowd they will be ground by it."

Reading, the interchange of thought, and social engagements should be encouraged by the superintendent among the teachers. To those of you who have not read "The Schoolmaster" in the October number of

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AMERICAN EDUCATION, let me suggest that you do so by all means.

I read that there are supervisors who think that they earn their money by making sure that their teachers shall be thoroughly tired. Here in Hudson we hold but five examinations a year including the final, but we read of places that have from four to five of them in a single day, carried on under the name of recitations, with percentages marked and entered as a matter of record. What product can you get from the overworked teachers? Such a scheme taxes the superintendent's brain to little purpose so far as the advancement of the public is concerned and we have as its final expression, "the man with the hoe."

The superintendent owes it to a teacher that he be slow to reach conclusions adverse to her. Occasional visits are insufficient upon which to base positive opinions. "Blessed is the superintendent who knows good work when he sees it, and is willing that the teacher should do it in her own way even if it should not be his way."

In order to gain and to hold the active loyal support of the teachers he must be loyal to them, sparing no pains to assure the public that the teachers are faithful to duty.

The sooner teachers learn to help one another, to encourage one another, to give one another the worthy word of praise, to live in the thought that all are exalted by the deeds of the strongest, the most effective and the most successful, the sooner will the whole army of educational workers hold a proper place of importance in the public eye and heart.

June

GEORGE C. ROWELL

Nature runs knee deep in joy To catch the winsome June, Summer's pretty errand boy, Who sets all hearts attune.

Cooperation of Home and School

ADA M. GATES, PRINCIPAL PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 36, BUFFALO, N. Y.

'HE important trend to-day in the edu

THE

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cational field and the only way to successfully reach desired results is to seek and get the co-operation of parents. The teachers who would much rather be left alone in their special field of activity immediately exclaim, "Do not bring more upon our shoulders." My dear worked teachers, that is not the idea, thorough co-operation will bring relief to you in many ways. Again, the spirit of restlessness is abroad, and parents are being awakened to their responsibilities. Then let us take the initiative. We, who are in the field, can much better bring about desired results. Having stated our idea of the situation, let us work to the conclusion, and see how closely in every way the home is connected with the school.

We all know that the longer period of infancy is what raises the intelligent standard of the human race above the animal. This period of infancy is a period of adjustment, a period of plasticity as well, when all influences have their weight. This period of infancy is said to have been the foundation of home life-holding the parents together in one common interest, in the protection and care of their young. This prolonged period of adjustment forms family ties other children are born, and we have the complete family life.

The most important and responsible feature of education, we find here at the very beginning, when the parents assist in adjusting the child to his environment, thus showing a strong necessity for the thorough training of parents as well as teachers. In the lower animals we find adjustment is fixed and uniform. It varies only with the nature of the stimulus.

Education in its broadest sense means the acquiring of experiences that will serve to modify inherited adjustments. The capacity to profit by the experiences of the past is limited to only a few forms of life. In this one point man is distinctively unique. Man has the capacity to profit by his own experiences. Man must be subjected to the educative process before he can complete his development. This is true of none of the lower orders. It is not so much his capacity for education, as the necessity of it. Mr. S. S. Lawrie states that: "At all stages of educational history, the family is the chief agency in the education of the young, and as such it ought never to be superseded."

From the early home training of primitive tribes, through savagery and barbarism came naturally the division of labor. Social life became fixed and permanent. Gradually, we find the branching out and training in the primitive arts. As the crafts of rudimentary civilization became specialized the masters in these crafts undertook the education of the "Apprentices." "Apprentices." This was the first type of formal education outside of the family.

Social castes arose: priests, soldiers and producers. Priests were the early instructors. Education meant the assimilation of knowledge, more than the acquisition of experiences, and education became a fixed and permanent function of religion. The modern school gradually developed from this educational appendage of the church.

The structure of the home has changed. from cave to tent from tent to hut, from hut to house, and from house to the crowded tenement in the city, poor apology indeed for home. The home should be a

governing factor in the formation of character and direction of life. Here comes the responsibility of parents. Life is complicated. It does not necessarily follow that what was good for our ancestors, is the best for us to-day. The world outside is to the animal with a home, a field of excitement, exertion and danger. The prolonged babyhood, or period of immaturity, requiring the care of the mother so closely, came to establish the woman's position in the home. In some instances making her position slavelike, in fact being bought and sold with the household belongings. The constant guarding of the mother had a tendency to narrow her position. Infancy is a period of necessary dependency and plasticity, so easily are the early habits formed. The child must come in contact with outside influences, must learn its little lessons, the mother must not shield it too much, else she has a weakling not strong enough to care for self later. The necessity for coming in contact with the outside world brought about the school as an extension of the home.

Comenius was the first to inculcate the principle that education begins at the mother's knee. The school then, traced through its various stages of the dame's school, private schools, district schools,, etc., finally became established as a specialized agency of formal education, which aimed to control in a measure the experiences of the child during the plastic period of infancy. Mr. Butler has said that this period of adjustment covers 30 years of one's life. The world changes and so does the home. The homes of to-day differ from the homes of 50 years ago. So the dignified position women are taking to-day in the laboring world, has changed the general feature of education as well as of the home. For the past quarter of a century at least, the child has been placed in school as early as possible and left to work out his own salvation, with the aid sometimes of an indifferent teacher.

Elizabeth Harrison says, "The true mother is a teacher whether she is conscious of it or not, and the true teacher uses the innate mother element, that which broods over the child and warms it into life, as much as she does her acquired knowledge." Froebel's motto was, "Come let us live with our children," a foolish old man he was called. "His mission was to give to mothers and teachers practical guidance in ways and means of employing and directing to their proper ends the activities of children. His secret, he said, was caught from mothers, and is to be learned by the divining heart." The true mother stands before her children as the embodiment of all that is noble and good. Sad indeed is it, when the busy mother of to-day, occupied more and more with the round of social duties, neglects to keep this high standard with her children, and the father busily engaged in the active and strenuous rush of the financial race finds no time even to become acquainted with his children. This situation more than any other, seems to have led to the lack of respect among the children of to-day. Parental and home influence is so much needed at this time, when the spirit of honesty seems well-nigh obscured by the fog of "frenzied finance." The effect upon the younger generation is deplorable, and cannot be wholly counteracted in the schoolroom. The teacher noting the indifference of parents begins to criticize, the mother, pricked by a conscience which tells of neglected duty, also criticises, and an antagonistic feeling arises, which tends to widen the breach between the two influences acting upon the child. Community interest must always lead to co-operation. One understands her own child better by knowing how another has been trained. How better can the mother come in contact with other mothers than by the club or association. How better come in contact with the educational influence than by having such an association formed in the

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