Selection and Management of Teachers
A second group of central problems have to do with the selection of teachers and their continued training while in service. It used to be very generally assumed, and in some quarters it seems to be assumed to-day, that in the teaching profession there is no need of training beyond the initial normal course or the initial college course that brought the candidate through the first requirements. A kind of persistence in professional efficiency on the part of teachers is assumed.
The day of such easy-going neglect of professional requirements is over. Score cards of teachers’ qualifications are being worked out. The relative importance of such personal qualifications as a pleasant voice and manner as compared with such products of training as knowledge of the correct forms of English expression and knowledge of geography or Latin must be determined with direct reference to the particular duties which are required of the teacher. The development of methods of correcting deficiencies in the equipment of a teaching corps, the proper distribution of the time and energy of a group of teachers, and the proper method of keeping the records of the work of teachers are all central problems. As the teacher stands in a central relation to his or her class, so the supervisor stands in a central relation to a corps of teachers.
Of all the problems touching teachers, that of their training in service is perhaps the most important. There is a great deal of very blind and ineffective effort expended each year in futile attempts to meet this problem. A great deal of required reading is done by teachers, and a great many meetings are attended which could be turned to better account if there were well-organized systems of training in service and of parallel promotional requirements.