I
I know of no way in which I can better introduce my subject than to
describe very briefly the work of a superintendent who once furnished me
with an example of a definite and effective method of supervision. This
man was a "long range" superintendent. It was impossible for him to
visit his schools very frequently, and so he did the next best thing: he
had the schools brought to him. When I first saw him he was poring over
a pile of papers that had just come in from one of his schools. I soon
discovered that these papers were arranged in sets, each set being made
up of samples taken each week from the work of the pupils in the schools
under his supervision. The papers of each pupil were arranged in
chronological order, and by looking through the set, he could note the
growth that the pupil in question had made since the beginning of the
term. Upon these papers, the superintendent recorded his judgment of the
amount of improvement shown both in form and in content.
I was particularly impressed by the character of his criticisms. There
was nothing vague or intangible about them. Every annotation was clear
and definite. If penmanship happened to be the point at issue, he would
note that the lines were too close together; that the letters did not
have sufficient individuality; that the spaces between the words were
not sufficiently wide; that the indentation was inadequate; that the
writing was cramped, showing that the pen had not been held properly;
that the margin needed correction. If the papers were defective from the
standpoint of language, the criticisms were equally clear and definite.
One pupil had misspelled the same word in three successive papers. "Be
sure that this word appears in the next spelling list," was the comment
of the superintendent. Another pupil habitually used a bit of false
syntax: "Place this upon the list of errors to be taken up and
corrected." Still others were uncertain about paragraphing: "Devote a
language lesson to the paragraph before the next written exercise." On
the covers of each bundle of class papers, he wrote directions and
suggestions of a more general nature; for example: "Improvement is not
sufficiently marked; try for better results next time"; or: "I note that
the pupils draw rather than write; look out for free movement." Often,
too, there were words of well-merited praise: "I like the way in which
your pupils have responded to their drill. This is good. Keep it up."
And not infrequently suggestions were made as to content: "Tell this
story in greater detail next time, and have it reproduced again"; or:
"The form of these papers is good, but the nature study is poor; don't
sacrifice thought to form."
In similar fashion, the other written work was gone over and annotated.
Every pupil in this system of schools had a sample of his written work
examined at regular and frequent intervals by the superintendent. Every
teacher knew just what her chief demanded in the way of results, and did
her best to gain the results demanded. I am not taking the position that
the results that were demanded represented the highest ideals of what
the elementary school should accomplish. Good penmanship and good
spelling and good language, in the light of contemporary educational
thought, seem to be something like happiness--you get them in larger
measure the less you think about getting them. But this possible
objection aside, the superintendent in question had developed a system
which kept him in very close touch with the work that was being done in
widely separated schools.
He told me further that, on the infrequent occasions when he could visit
his classrooms, he gave most of his time and attention to the matters
that could not be supervised at "long range." He found out how the
pupils were improving in their reading, and especially in oral
expression, in its syntax, its freedom from errors of construction, its
clearness and fluency. He listed the common errors, directing his
teachers to take them up in a systematic manner and eradicate them, and
he did not fail to note at his next visit how much progress had been
made. He noted the condition of the blackboard work, and kept a list of
the improvements that he suggested. He tested for rapidity in
arithmetical processes, for the papers sent to his office gave him only
an index of accuracy. He noted the habits of personal cleanliness that
were being developed or neglected. In fact, he had a long list of
specific standards that he kept continually in mind, the progress toward
which he constantly watched. And last, but by no means least, he carried
with him wherever he went an atmosphere of breezy good nature and
cheerfulness, for he had mastered the first principle in the art of both
supervision and teaching; he had learned that the best way to promote
growth in either pupils or teachers is neither to let them do as they
please nor to force them to do as you please, but to get them to please
to do what you please to have them do.
I instance this superintendent as one type of efficiency in supervision.
He was efficient, not simply because he had a system that scrutinized
every least detail of his pupils' growth, but because that scrutiny
really insured growth. He obtained the results that he desired, and he
obtained uniformly good results from a large number of young, untrained
teachers. We have all heard of the superintendent who boasted that he
could tell by looking at his watch just what any pupil in any classroom
was doing at just that moment. Surely here system was not lacking. But
the boast did not strike the vital point. It is not what the pupil is
doing that is fundamentally important, but what he is gaining from his
activity or inactivity; what he is gaining in the way of habits, in the
way of knowledge, in the way of standards and ideals and prejudices, all
of which are to govern his future conduct. The superintendent whom I
have described had the qualities of balance and perspective that enabled
him to see both the woods and the trees. And let me add that he taught
regularly in his own central high school, and that practically all of
his supervision was accomplished after school hours and on Saturdays.
But my chief reason for choosing his work as a type is that it
represents a successful effort to supervise that part of school work
which is most difficult and irksome to supervise; namely, the formation
of habits. Whatever one's ideals of education may be, it still remains
true that habit building is the most important duty of the elementary
school, and that the efficiency of habit building can be tested in no
other way than by the means that he employed; namely, the careful
comparison of results at successive stages of the process.