In all aspects of the school, administration call be a help or hindrance to progress. As one school superintendent writes, "Administration frequently, by its inertia, its traditional patterns and solutions, has held up the development of the work of teaching and guidance to which it owes its sole excuse for being. It is inevitable that some change in administrative organization must be effected before many vital changes in the curriculum can be accomplished."4
From the beginning, one of the most pressing of administrative problems was that of providing time for teachers to study and plan together. In most schools principals and teachers are fully occupied in the school day. There is little opportunity for conference. Every teacher knows that an hour late in the afternoon is not a good time for constructive thinking. Here, then, was a problem calling for imagination Oil the part of the administrator.
One school solved the problem with some satisfaction by meeting for two hours one evening each week. This meeting was preceded by a late afternoon hour of exercise, then dinner together. Another device found satisfactory in
several schools is that of beginning school in the morning at, say, nine o'clock instead of eight-fifteen. Teachers come at eight and have an uninterrupted hour for conference as a whole faculty or in committees. Students take responsibility for building and playgrounds before nine. Other arrangements have been worked out in other schools. Whatever plan is adopted, the importance of finding time for deliberation cannot be over-emphasized.
If it is essential that the staff of an individual school cooperate in setting up purposes and in planning ways to achieve them, it is equally necessary that the schools which comprise a city school system should find ways of working together for common ends. Although there should be differences among the schools, growing out of differences in home background, interests, needs and purposes of the student body, the major goals should be the same throughout the city. To secure the necessary co-operative planning, various administrative devices have been developed among the Thirty Schools. One of the most effective plans is The School Policies Council, functioning in somewhat different ways in Denver, Tulsa, Des Moines, and Shaker Heights.5 Representatives of all the schools unite with the superintendent and central administrative group to bring essential unity into the work of the schools.
The strength of such an organization depends largely upon the sincerity of the superintendent's belief in democratic principles and processes. One important tenet of democratic administration is that action should follow full deliberation. Sometimes after teachers and administrators had studied a problem at length and had decided upon a course of action, nothing was done. The changes agreed upon were not made and no explanation was forthcoming.
The inevitable result was a feeling on the part of teachers that their time and energy given to co-operative planning were wasted. On the other hand, when changes were made as planned, teachers were encouraged to further creative thought and action.
The resources of administration were challenged in another area as the schools attempted to know their boys and girls better. How could teachers be "free for the best creative use of their talents" in this respect? Everyone realized in schools generally, especially in the larger ones, that many a pupil failed and no one knew why; that many a girl dropped out of school and no teacher knew why; that many a student accomplished much less than his ability called for and no one knew the reason. Many a boy, perhaps undernourished, perhaps emotionally upset, came to school from an unhappy home, but no one at school knew.
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8 Year Web Project
Introduction
II Schools Choose
Schools-Start
