School officer

“ Besides, the list of chaplains is so great that they can not all be employed at sea, and the range of selection of teachers may be enlarged by taking from their number some who would prefer giving instruction at the school to serving afloat. The object of the department being to make the simplest and most effective arrangement for a school; you will be the highest officer in the establishment, and will be intrusted with its government. It is my wish, if it be possible, to send no other naval officer to the school, except such as may be able and willing to give instruction. ”

“ In general, it is evident from a study of American school systems that emphasis has not been laid on central organization. Cities have employed a superintendent when they had a population of five thousand inhabitants and have expected a single officer to continue to perform all the duties of that office when the population has increased to one hundred thousand. A principal is put in charge of a high school of two hundred students and continues to have full responsibility for the school when it increases to eight hundred students. ”

“ Here the young aspirant finds himself with nine or ten companions and a body of teachers amounting to about half that number, appointed by the commanding officer of the army corps, and differing considerably in different districts in their talents and ideas of education. They are often, though not always, selected from officers who have been at the Staff School, and afterwards at the Topographical Bureau. Their additional pay for teaching is uncertain ”

“ In general.—The education line officer of an agency office of the Bureau may appeal to the Director of the Office any determination by the local school board for the school that an individual be employed, or not be employed, as the supervisor of a school by filing a written statement describing the determination and the reasons the supervisor believes such determination should be overturned. ”

“ As the School is expressly intended as a nursery for the army, all the ambition of the students is made to bear upon that point: extraordinary application, or regularity of conduct, is recompensed by a step of military rank; and thus, should the intention of the authorities ever be borne out, a youth of talent and good conduct may hereafter quit the college as an officer, and thus commence his actual career of life, where many of his predecessors have terminated their’s. ”

“ The secretary of the Sunday school is an officer of far greater importance than is generally supposed. In too many schools some youth in the adolescent period is made secretary, merely to keep him in the school, without consideration of his capacity and adaptedness to the office. ”

“ In order to make school-officers, as members of district and township school-boards, better acquainted with their official duties and to increase the general interest in the welfare of the public schools, especially the rural schools, a few states have begun the practice of having these officers in each county meet together once each year. ”

“ Without exception, the reports of school officers give credit for constantly increasing excellency and proficiency of both schools and teachers, and certain it is, that the public appreciation and esteem is shown by an increasing patronage and a more substantial provision for the improvement and support of the schools. ”

“ To ensure compliance with the rules, a field supervisor and a program coordinator, who are full-time public school employees, make unannounced visits to each teacher's classroom at least once a month. ”

“ The existing school organization is used to conduct the enterprise. For each 25 boys enlisted a supervisor is appointed, a male teacher of strong ability in the local school,—in towns where there are several supervisors, either the superintendent of schools or the principal of the high school. ”

“ For three months preparations should be made, the superintendent and teachers should consult, a committee should consider every case, and the changes should be made deliberately and systematically. On one Sunday in the year pupils should be promoted from department to department, and classes should be advanced from grade to grade in the several departments. The basis of promotion should be age, knowledge, and general maturity of character, and the authorities of the school should decide just how much weight should be given to each requirement. ”

“ He should know every scholar, so that he can check them off without asking the teacher the name, and should have a quick, vigilant eye, not only for his own duties, but, also, in order to communicate valuable suggestions respecting the school to the superintendent. ”

“ Nowhere to-day can you find in village schoolmaster, district or town school teacher, superintendent of instruction, or learned professor, a figure that fills out and continues just the portrait of the typical pedagogue of a generation or more ago. ”

“ To secure a position upon the eligible list from which appointments may be made, a candidate, if without experience, should be required to complete the full four years’ course of the city high schools, or its equivalent, and in addition thereto pass the examination of the board of examiners, and complete at least a year’s course of professional training in a city normal training school under the direction of the superintendent. ”

“ He had to assist in the department work all the afternoon, thus learning his duties practically, and being of real use to the government while still a school-boy. The teachers were older officials of the same department, under whose care and instruction the boys were placed, and the same teacher conducted the entire education of a young man, teaching him the first rudiments of writing, initiating him into the practical work of the department, and, even after the young man had become an official himself, remaining his counselor and friend. ”

“ Your Committee believes that in many systems of elementary schools there is injury done by too much formality in ascertaining whether the pupils of a given class have completed the work up to a given arbitrarily fixed point, and are ready to take up the next apportionment of the work. In the early days of city school systems, when the office of superintendent was first created, it was thought necessary to divide up the graded course of study into years of work, and to hold stated annual examinations to ascertain how many pupils could be promoted to the next grade or year’s work. ”

“ If the teacher really teaches, and faithfully watches the mental growth of her pupils through the work of one or more years, she alone is the best judge of their fitness to do the work of the next grade. The examinations of a superintendent should be to ascertain whether the principals under his charge have the requisite ability and knowledge to organize, teach, and supervise a large school. The examinations of the principal should test the teaching power of his teachers. And, lastly, the teachers should test by examinations the mental growth of their pupils. ”

“ Let a thoroughly competent person, a man of large views, and general knowledge, be selected and appointed an inspector, and receive a sufficient compensation to devote a considerable portion of his time to this subject; let him have under his charge the schools of a sufficiently extensive district; let him spend a considerable time in these schools in rotation, inspect the manner in which they are instructed, suggest to the teachers any improvements in the method of instruction and government, and be, in fact, a kind of regimental school-master. ”

“ And in the increasing number of schools which are employing graded lessons, not uniform in the departments, the superintendent should have at least a general knowledge of the subjects studied in each department. The more thoroughly the superintendent fills his own mind and heart with the truth, the more efficiently will the truth be taught in his school. ”

“ The school administration is vested in a single head, the superintendent of schools, who is appointed by the board of education of three members. In charge of each school-building is an executive principal, whose duties are concerned with program-making, with supervision of the pupil’s schedules, with the general maintenance of order and discipline, and ordinary administrative work. ”

“ Though the Superintendents as such, have necessarily speaking, no teaching to do, still they ought particularly to secure the progress of every pupil in what may be called the essential studies, such as reading, writing, and spelling. For this purpose they either see that their pupils are going on successfully in classes in school, in these branches, or they may attend to them in the Section, provided that they never allow such instruction to interfere with their more appropriate and important duties. ”

“ The following resolutions were adopted by the Board in connection with the organisation of the proposed school:—" (1.) One of the masters shall hold the appointment of Rector or Principal, and shall have the general oversight of all the classes within the institution, and shall be responsible for the good government, efficiency, and success of the same; but each master, as far as possible shall have the charge of a distinct department of instruction. ”

“ These assistants, chosen from among the best, are to form the future teachers, to take the place of the lowest in the minor schools.
Naturally the organization of these teachers' meetings, both for the smaller and the larger schools, and the head teacher's visits of inspection, and the formation of teachers from pupils acting as assistants may take place in a large variety of ways; the main point is that the surveillance of any number of schools (even though it may reach the norm of one school to every one hundred souls) is possible in this manner. ”

“ Students will be appointed to the Normal Schools by the Superintendent, upon the recommendation of superintendents and school commissioners. These officers will be relied upon to properly represent to possible candidates the needs of the public schools for well-qualified teachers, and the necessity of professional and technical training on the part of all who intend to teach. No students can be admitted who have not already acquired a substantial elementary education. ”

“ There are nine chapters that are concerned more or less directly with the teacher’s work in the school and between Sundays, such as: A Graded Course of Study, Correlated Lessons, Methods of Teaching, Story Telling, the Value of Handwork and Connecting Truth with Life. The superintendent will find help for problems of management, grading, organization, equipment, the department service of worship, the celebration of special days and in guiding the play life of the pupils. ”

“ The superintendent of instruction should have a seat and voice but not a vote in the board of education. The board of education should also appoint a business agent, and define his powers and duties in relation to all matters of buildings, repairs, and supplies, substantially as set forth in the report in relation to the school director. ”

“ But what has all this to do with school supervision? As I view it, the supervisor of schools as the overseer and director of the educational process, is just now confronted with two great problems. The first of these is to keep a clear head in the present muddled condition of educational theory. From the very fact of his position, the supervisor must be a leader, whether he will or not. It is a maxim of our profession that the principal is the school. In our city systems the supervising principal is given almost absolute authority over the school of which he has charge. ”

“ Each teacher, who tries such an experiment, will find himself insensibly repeating it, and after a time he may have quite a number of officers and committees, who are entrusted with various departments of business. He will have a secretary, chosen by ballot, by the scholars, to keep a record of all the important transactions in the school, for each day. ”

“ For the pupil, organization means a degree of flexibility and individual instruction extraordinary for a public school. Except in the lowest grades, the pupils are classified by subjects as well as by grades, so that practically college methods obtain. Each pupil has 102his own schedule or program, just as the college student has. The executive principal corresponds to the college registrar in supervising these individual records. The pupil is promoted by subjects and not by grades, and may be promoted or demoted at any time by the supervisor of instruction, acting with the teacher. ”

“ The board must accordingly appoint teachers and a superintendent. These latter are selected because they have training and technical qualifications which the community needs in the schools. The technical officers have in an important sense an independent place in the educational system. It will be remembered that the teacher was the first one to whom the community delegated responsibility for the schools. Not infrequently the community finds its board of representative citizens on one side of a school issue and its technical officers on the other side. ”

“ It is difficult to find any common link between the university professor, the head master of a great public school, an instructor in physical training, and a kindergarten teacher. It is not easy to bring together the head master of a preparatory school, working in complete independence, and the head master of a public elementary school, dealing with pupils of about the same age as those in the preparatory school, but controlled and directed by an elected public authority under the general supervision of the Board of Education. ”