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The Period of the Schoolmaster
In a report of the Record Commission in the City of Boston, supervision was defined as a committee of inspectors who visited schools occasionally to inform themselves the teachers used in teaching, to find out the students' proficiency, and to observe their performances. They used their observations to consult and advise further methods of advance of learning and good government of the school. These "inspectors" were often referred to as schoolmasters. -
Definition of Supervision from 1300s to 1700s
One of the earliest definitions known for "supervision" from the early 14th century was "oversight, omission of notice, fact of passing over without seeing". Since then, it has referred to general management, direction, control, and Inspection (From the Online Etymology Dictionary, 2013). -
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The Period of the Ward Bpard
From the American Revolution until the middle of the 1800s, teachers were hired and supervised by local lay trustees called ward boards. They examined a classroom looking for errors even though they were not professionally trained as educators or supervisors. There was strict control and close inspection of school instruction and facilities. -
Horace Mann Elected as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
PBS Online's Schoolhouse PioneersHorace Mann became the Father of the Common School and the first professional supervisor of teachers. He started the movement of organizing schools into district systems that were state-controlled instead of rural schools run locally. Mann supervised based on his intuition rather than technical or scientific knowledge (Sullian & Glanz, 2009). -
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Hierarchy of Supervision Emerges
The practice of supervision of instruction by inspection of teachers by a hierachy of supervisors that included a building principal, special supervisor, and a general supervisor. These roles are compatible with today's principal, instructional coach, and assistant principal, respectively. The goal of the building principal and general supervisor was to uncover teahcer weaknesses and failures, while the special supervisor provided more direction and modeling on how to improve instruction. -
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Taylor published "The Principles of Scientific Management" which stressed efficiency in the workplace. -
Franklin Bobbitt
Bobbitt applied Taylor's philosophy and ideas of scientific management of business to the field of educational supervision that promoted scientific, control-oriented supervision in a bureaucratic system. Supervision became synonymous with teacher ratings under this model. -
Sallie Hill, Teacher
Ms. Hill critized the methods of teacher ratings and complained about the lack of democracy ins chools. Starting in the 1920s, there was a change that resulted in greater democracy for teachers, mostly females, in schools. -
Jesse Newlon, Superintendent
Newlon believed that supervisors needed to focus on what they hoped to achieve by their supervision and that by working together with teachers in a "supervisory council" model, teachers were more open to change and assistance from leaders. -
James Hosic, Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University
Hosic opposed managing and supervising a school like it was a business. He maintained that the features and purpose of schools are inherently different than industry and thus cannot, and should not be compared. -
Democratic Supervision in the Schools
An anonymous poem written in 1929 and published in Sullivan and Glanz (2009) serves as an artifact to the change in perspectives about education supervision in the late 1920s-30s. The poem indicates supervisors are using more demonstration, suggestion, recommendation and encouragement to improve instructional practices rather than to just point out what teachers are doing wrong or using supervision to get rid of bad teachers. -
John Dewey Contributes to the Democratic Movement in Education
Dewey's theories of scientific thinking and development contributed to a change in the role of the educational supervisor as one who cooperates with teachers using a scientific problem-solving model to improve instruction. -
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Classroom Observation Used to Help Improve Instruction
Romiett Stevens created stenographer reports of verbatim classroom observations as a tool for supervisors to share with teachers to analyze and improve instruction. They were considered the "first major systematic study of classroom behavior" (Sullivan & Glanz, pg. 15). Democratic and scientific supervision continued into the 1950s. -
A. S. Barr Promotes the Scientific Analysis of Teaching
Barr (1925) proposes objective data collection using tests, rating scales, and observational instruments to meaure the results of supervision. -
1960s The Idea of Supervision as Leadership Emerges
Leadership is achieved through supervision by "1) developing mutually acceptable goals, (2) extending
cooperative and democratic methods of supervision,
(3) improving class room instruction, (4) promoting
research into educational problems, and (5) promoting
professional leadership" (Sullivan & Glanz, 2009, pg. 17). -
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The Clinical Supervision Model of Teaching Becomes Popular
Different historians credit different people for creating this model to include Cogan (1973), Hill (1968), and Conant (1936). Regardless, most agreed that there should be a prescribed, formal process for evaluating practices and improving instruction that included collaboration between the supervisor and the teacher (Sullivan & Glanz, 2009). -
1970s
There is a great deal of ambiguity in the role and purpose of the supervisor during the 1970s, so alternative perspectives and models begin to arise within the field of education. -
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The Flux Continues into 2000
The ambiguity of the democratic, scientific supervision concept n conjunction with political change led to different models of supervision as a means to lead the school. Glickman (1981) opined a developmental supervision notion which was a type of differentiated instruction for teachers providing varied levels of supervision based on the teachers' abilities. Leathwood and Jantzi (1990) penned transformational leadership because they felt that supervisors were the agents of change for a school. -
Standards-Based Supervision
As a results of the political and education standards-based reform, supervision models have regained some of the scientific analysis of the 1930s-50s. The use of these objective data collection tools to improve standards-based instruction attempts to maintain a democratic, collaborative partnership between the teacher and supervisor.