The training of a large number of persons who will be competent to take up managerial functions is especially important in the school system of a democracy because the problems of each community are in some measure local problems to be solved at the point where they arise. In a school system which treats every child and every community exactly alike administration is simplified through uniformity. In a school system which is as complex as ours there must be an intelligent adaptation of organization to particular ends, and every device which will promote such adaptation is economical.
The Purpose of the Present Discussion
The general discussion of supervision will be clearer if we take up for brief description some of the problems which should be dealt with by central officers and some of the methods of solving these problems. It will not be the purpose of this discussion to attempt anything like a complete enumeration of such problems or methods, but merely to suggest their type.
Studies of the Community
First, there must be a study of the community. To some extent the individual teacher must take a share in this study. The character of each pupil and the facts about his home surroundings are important to the teacher in carrying on class work. But there must be some agency which can devote time and attention to a systematic collection of facts. The teacher has a right to expect that the school system as a system will make information readily available which it would be difficult for an individual to collect. The central officers should make such a study.
The making of a school census is a duty of the central officers who have in hand the enforcement of the compulsory-attendance laws. When these officers recognize their task as a large educational task, they will make the census not merely a formal basis for compelling attendance but a means of collecting a body of facts on which educational adaptations can be based.
It has been pointed out in earlier chapters that the community should be studied with a view to discovering the needs of pupils. Up to this time such studies have been made as special undertakings in a few isolated communities. For example, the industries of Richmond, Virginia, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and of the state of Indiana have been studied by special commissions and reported at three annual meetings of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. What is needed is a constant study of these problems in every community. Again, teachers cannot meet the demand. This problem is a central problem, and the central management must be equipped to get information which the teachers need but cannot collect.
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.