RURAL SCHOOL SUPERVISION
=Important.=--Supervision is fully as important as teaching. The
supervisor must be, to even a higher degree than the teacher, a strong
personality, and this too implies a high standard and an attractive
salary. The supervisor or superintendent must be somewhat of an expert
in the methods of teaching all the common school subjects. Not only must
he understand school discipline and organization in its details, but he
must possess the ability to "turn in" and exemplify his qualifications
at any time. It will be seen everywhere that the supervisor or
superintendent is the expensive person; for, having the elements of
leadership, he is in demand in educational positions as well as in
outside callings. Consequently it is only by a good financial
inducement, as a rule, that a competent supervisor can be retained in
the profession.
=Supervision Standardizes.=--Without the superintendent or supervisor,
no common standard can be attained or maintained. It is he who keeps the
force up to the line; without him each teacher is a law unto himself and
there will be as many standards as there are teachers. Human nature is
innately slothful and negligent, and needs the spirit of supervision to
keep it toned up to the necessary pitch. Supervision over a large force
of workers of any kind is absolutely necessary to secure efficiency, and
to keep service up to a high standard.
=Supervision Can Be Overdone.=--The necessity for supervision is clearly
felt in the city systems. There they have a general superintendent,
principals of buildings, and supervisors in various special lines. A
system of schools in the city without supervision would simply go to
pieces. It would soon cease to be a system, and would become chaotic. It
may be, it is true, that in some cities there is too much supervision;
it may become acute and pass the line of true efficiency. Indeed, in
some cities the red tape may become so complicated and systematized that
it becomes an end, and schools and pupils seem to exist for supervisors
and systems instead of _vice versa_. It is probably true that the
constant presence of a supervisor who is adversely critical may do
injury to the efficiency of a good teacher. No one can teach as well
under disapprobation as he can where he feels that his hands are free;
and so in some places supervision may act as a wet blanket. It may
suppress spontaneity, initiative, and real life in the school. But this
is only an abuse of a good thing, and probably does not occur
frequently. In any event, the exception would only prove the rule.
Supervision is as necessary in a system of schools as it is in a
railroad or in large industries.
[Illustration: A basket ball team for the girls]
[Illustration: A brass band for the young men]
[Caption for the above illustrations: ACTIVITIES OF THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL]
=Needed in Rural Schools.=--The country partakes of the same isolation
in regard to its schools as it does in regard to life in general. This
isolation is accentuated where there is little or no supervision.
Without it, the necessary stimulus seldom or never touches the life of
the teacher or the school. There is little uplift; the school runs along
in its ordinary, humdrum fashion, and never measures itself with other
schools, and is seldom measured by a supervisor. A poor teacher may be
in the chair one term and a good teacher another. The terms are short
and the service somewhat disconnected. The whole situation gives the
impression to people, pupils, and teacher that education is not of very
great value.
=No Supervision in Some States.=--In some states there is but little
supervision. There may be, it is true, a district board, but these are
laymen, much better acquainted with the principles of farming than with
those of teaching. They have no standards for judging a school and
seldom visit one. The selection known as the "Deestrict Skule"
illustrates fairly well the ability of the old-time school board to pass
judgment upon the professional merits of the teacher.
=Nominal Supervision.=--In other states there is a county superintendent
on part time who has a kind of general but attenuated supervision over
all the schools of a county. He is usually engaged in some other line of
work--in business, in medicine, in law, in preaching--and can give only
a small portion of his time to the work of superintendence. Indeed,
this means only an occasional visit to the school, probably once every
one or two years, and such simple and necessary reports as are demanded
by the state superintendent or State Board of Education. Such
supervision, however honestly performed, accomplishes but little. The
superintendent may visit the teacher to-day, but when he returns a year
hence, he is likely to find another teacher in charge. Under such
circumstances, what can he do? He has seen the teacher at work for half
an hour or an hour; he offers a suggestion, or makes some complimentary
remark, and goes his way. No one realizes better than he how little he
has been able to accomplish. And yet, under existing circumstances he
has done all that could be expected.
=Some Supervision.=--There are, elsewhere, county superintendents who
devote their whole time to the work, but who are chosen for short terms
and in a political campaign. Very frequently these men are elected for
political reasons quite as much as for educational fitness. If a
superintendent so elected is politically minded--and I regret to say
that sometimes this is the case--he will probably devote much time,
energy, and thought to paving the way for reelection. Expecting to be a
candidate for a second term, he will use his best efforts to impress the
public mind in his favor. This sometimes results in greater attention to
the duties of his office and the consequent betterment of the schools;
but, too often, it works in the opposite direction. Being elected for
only two years, he has not the time to carry out any educational policy
no matter how excellent his plans may be. Of course many persons chosen
in this way make excellent and efficient officers, but the plan is bad.
The good superintendent frequently loses out soonest.
=An Impossible Task.=--Superintendents sometimes have under their
jurisdiction from one hundred to two hundred, or even more, schools
separated by long distances. The law usually prescribes that the county
superintendent shall visit each school at least once a year. This means
that practically he will do no more; indeed it is often impossible to do
more. It means that his visits must of necessity be a mere perfunctory
call of an hour or two's duration with no opportunity to see the same
teacher again at work to determine whether or not she is making
progress, and whether she is carrying out his instructions. Such
so-called supervision, or superintendence, is not supervision at
all--how can it be? The superintendent is only a clerical officer who
does the work required by law, and makes incidentally an annual social
visit to the schools.
=The Problem Not Tackled.=--Such a situation is another evidence that
the states which tolerate the foregoing conditions have not, in any real
and earnest manner, attempted to solve the problem of rural school
supervision. They have merely let things drift along as they would, not
fully realizing the problem or else trusting to time to come to their
aid. Micawber-like, they are waiting for "something to turn up." But
such problems will not solve themselves.
=City Supervision.=--Compare the supervision described above with that
which is usually found in cities. There we usually find a general
superintendent and assistant superintendents; there are high school
principals and a principal at the head of every grade building; there is
also a supervisor of manual training, of domestic science, of music, of
drawing, and possibly of other subjects. When we consider, too, that the
teachers in the city are all close at hand and that the supervisor or
superintendent may drop into any room at any time with scarcely a
minute's notice, we see the difference between city supervision and
country supervision. Add to this the fact that cities attract the strong
teachers--the professionally trained teachers, the output of the
professional schools--and we can see again how effective supervision
becomes in the city as compared with that in the country. In the country
we find only one superintendent for a county often as large as some of
the older states, and the possibility of visiting each school only about
once a year. Here also are the teachers who are not professionalized, as
a rule, and who, therefore, need supervision most.
=The Purpose of Supervision.=--The main purpose of supervision is to
bring teachers up to a required standard of excellence in their work and
to keep them there. It is always the easiest plan to dismiss a teacher
who is found deficient, but this is cutting the knot rather than untying
it. Efficient and intelligent supervision proceeds along the line of
building such a teacher up, of making her strong where she is weak, of
giving her initiative where she lacks it, of inculcating good methods
where she is pursuing poor ones, of inducing her to come out of her
shell where she is backward and diffident. In other words, the great
work of the supervisor is to elicit from teachers their most active and
hearty response in all positive directions. It should be understood by
teachers--and they should know that the superintendent or supervisor
indorses the idea--that it is always better to go ahead and blunder than
to stand still for fear of blundering; and so, in the presence of a good
supervisor, the teacher is not afraid to let herself out. In the
conference, later, between herself and her supervisor, mistakes may be
pointed out; but, better than this, the best traits of the teacher
should be brought to her mind and the weak ones but lightly referred to.
=What Is Needed.=--What is needed in the rural situation is a county
superintendent chosen because of his professional fitness by a county
board whose members have been elected at large. This board should be
elected on a nonpartisan ticket and so far as possible on a basis of
qualification and of good judgment in educational matters. It should
hold office for a period of years, some members retiring from the board
annually so that there shall not be, at any time, an entirely new board.
This would insure continuity. Another plan for a county board would be
to have the presidents of the district boards act as a county board of
education. Such a board should be authorized--and indeed this tradition
should be established--to select a county superintendent from applicants
from outside as well as inside the county. They should be empowered to
go anywhere in the country for a superintendent with a reputation in the
teaching profession. This is the present plan in cities, and it should
be true also in the selection of a county superintendent.
=The Term.=--The term of office of the county superintendent should be
at the discretion of the county board. It should be not less than three
or four years--of sufficient length to enable a man to carry out a line
of policy in educational administration. The status of the county
superintendency should be similar to that of the city superintendency.
=Assistants.=--The county board should be empowered to provide
assistants for the county superintendent. There should be one such
assistant for about thirty or thirty-five schools. It is almost
impossible for a supervisor to do efficient and effective work if he has
more than this number of schools, located, as they are, some distance
apart. Provision for such assistants, who should, like the
superintendent himself, be experts, is based upon the assumption that
supervision is worth while, and in fact necessary in any system if
success is to be attained. If the supervision of thirty-five schools is
an important piece of work it should be well done, and a person well
qualified for that work should be selected. He should be a person of
sympathetic attitude, of high qualifications, and of experience in the
field of elementary education. The assistants should be carefully
selected by the board on the recommendation of the county
superintendent. Poor supervision is little better than none.
=The Schools Examined.=--The county superintendent and his assistants
should give, periodically, oral and written examinations in each school,
thus testing the work of both the teacher and the pupils. These
examinations should not conform in any perfunctory or red-tape manner to
a literally construed course of study. The course of study is a means
and not an end, and should be, at all points and times, elastic and
adaptable. To make pupils fit the course of study instead of making the
course of study fit the pupils is the old method of the Procrustean
bed--if the person is not long enough for it he is stretched; if too
long, a piece is cut off. Any examination or tests which would wake up
mind and stimulate education in the neighborhood may be resorted to; but
it should be remembered that examinations are likewise a means and not
an end.
Some years ago when I was a county superintendent I tried the plan of
giving such tests in any subject to classes that had completed a
definite portion of that subject and arrived at a good stopping place.
If, for example, the teacher announced that his class had acquired a
thorough knowledge of the multiplication table, I gave a searching test
upon that subject and issued a simple little certificate to the effect
that the pupil had completed it. These little certificates acted like
stakes put down along the way, to give incentive, direction, and
definiteness to the educative processes, and to stimulate a reasonable
class spirit or individual rivalry. I meet these pupils occasionally
now--they are to-day grown men and women--and they retain in their
possession these little colored certificates which they still highly
prize.
One portion of my county was populated almost entirely by Scandinavians,
and here a list of fifty to a hundred words was selected which
Scandinavian children always find it difficult to pronounce. At the
first trial many or most of the children mispronounced a large
percentage of them. I then announced that, the next time I visited the
school, I would test the pupils again on these words and others like
them, and issue "certificates of correct pronunciation" to all who were
entitled to them. I found, on the next visit, that nearly all the
children could secure these certificates. These tests created a great
impetus in the direction of correct pronunciation and language. Some
teachers, from mistaken kindness, had been accustomed to refrain from
correcting the children on such words, but as superintendent I found
that both the parents and the children wished drill in pronunciation and
were gratified at their success. This is only a sample. I would advocate
the giving of tests, or examinations, on any subject in the school
likely to lead to good results and to stimulate the minds of the pupils
in the right direction. The county superintendent and his assistants
might agree to lay the accent or the emphasis on different subjects, or
lines of work, in different years.
=Keep Down Red Tape.=--In all the work of supervision, the formal
part--the accounting and reporting part--should be kept simple; the
tendency in administrative offices is too often in the direction of
complexity and red tape. Wherever there is form merely for the sake of
form, it is well worth while to sound a note of warning against it.
=Help the Social Centers.=--The county superintendent and his assistants
can be of inestimable value in all the work of the social centers. They
should advise with school boards in regard to consolidation and other
problems agitating the community. They should lend a helping hand to
programs that are being carried out in any part of the county. They
should give lectures themselves at such social centers and, if asked,
should help the local communities and local committees in every way
within their power.
=Conclusion.=--The problem, then, of superintendence is, we conclude,
one of the large and important problems awaiting solution in rural life
and in rural schools. It is the binding force that will help to unify
all the educational activities of the county. It is one of the chief
stimulating and uplifting influences in rural education. As in the case
of most other school problems, the constant surprise is that the people
have not awakened sooner to the realization of its importance and to an
honest and earnest attempt at its solution.