Teaching English, How To.... Thoughts on Supervision

In twenty years as a K-12 language arts supervisor, I learned the following lessons:

1. The most fun was working with teachers to solve problems in our profession. The camaraderie that we developed in working together and in achieving our successes was rewarding. But the problem-solving workshop is only the beginning. The larger problem is in spreading the word to those who were not in the workshop.

2. Never stop listening. Listening to teachers and parents and students and administrators and helping them achieve their goals enriched our K-12 language arts program immeasurably.

3. In inservice programs, teach teachers the way you want them to teach their students. They can gauge the effects of those methods on themselves and if they work well for them, they will use the methods with their students.

4. Don’t change for change’s sake. Don’t change because of the popularity of contemporary fads. Initiate change because almost everyone agrees on the need to change. This agreement to change will come from unbiased evaluation. And even when almost everyone agrees on the need to change, watch out for the side effects. Spend as much time planning evaluation as planning the change in the curriculum.

5. The most rewarding aspect of supervision is not having the authority to tell people what to do. Helping people to change without the authority to demand it requires creativity. The more resistance you experience, the more creativity you need. Supervision is, by definition, problem solving. And problems are best solved by working together with everyone affected by the problem.