Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1917-08-15
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT.
Teachers Should Use Appro-
pirate Illustrations. Black
board Needed For Illus
trations.

turned IGOm COulSe VI Sc'ci di
weeks instruction at Peabody Col
lege, Nashville, Tenn, and has Civ
en- out statement concerning the
work of teachers that is timely and
should be attended with profitable
results, especially as schools are
soon to open. The following is the
statement of Mr.. Gunter:
During the past week group
of from 80 to SO men and women,
for the most part state and county
public school supervisors from the
several Southern States, have been
meeting daily with the members of
the Peabody college faculty to dis
cuss in round table conference the
needs of the public schools in the
Southern states and the supervisors
relations to those needs. The topics
o. discussion were suggested by the
supervisors and the members of the
Peabody faculty in whose depart
ment7 a certain topic naturally fell,
consented to preside over the con-
ference during the discussion of
that topic
"Tbe whole of the past week was
given to the question of supervision
of country schools, this being a
question in which the supervisors
would have the greatest interest.
DR.. Chas. A. McMurry conducted
these conferences for the entire
week.
THE first point that was settled
with reference to supervision was
that there is very little supervision
of classroom instruction in country
schools. The supervisory officers
of country schools from necessity
or from choice, give attention to the
physical conditions of the schools.
the organization, and in general the
Business side OF school administra-
ton, and little or no attention to
the actual teaching. With the
short visit that is paid to school
by the county superintendent of
education, and frequently by a
county supervisor where such officer
exists. 1t was generally agreed
that hardly more than the details of
organization could be supervised.
At the same time it was pointed out
that the inexperience of many
country teachers and the great diff
culties of Classification for proper
work in country schools make the
supervision of instruction in country
schools a matter of greater import
ance than in city schools where
these difficulties seldom exist, but
where close supervision has for
years been fixed policy.
Zone of the greatest weaknesses
of most teachers, and especially Of
the teachers IN country schools, was
declared to be the inability of the
teacher to enrich the textbook ma
terial by illustration and sometimes
by story. This inability comes
sometimes from lack of knowledge
as to the sources of such material
and frequently from failure to
understand that it is such enrich;
ment that makes teaching impres.
sive, vital, and most worthwhile.
Supervisors who come into intimate
contact with teachers, as all county
supervisors do, were urged to acquire
a stock of good stories of real merit
and suited to the age of the children
to whom they are told Ill order to
give demonstrations, when possible,
of the valne of such teaching. They
were urged further to be constantly
preparing themselves TO give demon
strations to teachers as we'll as to
how some of the mere statements OF
the textbooks could be enriched by
outside material.
1T was agreed that another great
weakness of teachersis the inability
to give blackboard demonstrations
and failure to appreciate the value
of such. Too frequently teachers
expect pupils to get a complete
mental picture of situation from
the statement in few words of the
textbook. The pupils fail to get
the picture and lose the lesson, when
the making of a few lines on the
blackboard by way Of illustration
might have given perfectly clear
picture and made the lesson com.
plete. Supervisors were urged
again to skill themselves in the use
of the blackboard in order that they
might give teachers demonstrations
of the value of the blackboard IN
teaching.
unfortunately in only a few