Teaching and learning will flourish when principals encourage the initiative of their teachers
B Raghaveeran
R Yogalakshmi
Education is essentially a creative process stimulating the intellectual growth of the young. If the administration is not efficient, stimulating and creative, if it is formal and wooden, it can easily bring to nought the rich opportunities provided by the school and kill the enthusiasm and interest of both teacher and student. It is on the principal’s understanding, sympathy, vision, goodwill, ability and leadership that the fate of the school turns.
Means to an end
The school exists mainly to help children educate themselves. The chief activities that go on inside it are teaching and learning. The teacher, the materials and environment are means to that end. And so is the principal her supervision and administration are subordinate to the process of teaching and learning. And yet many principals work as if their orders, rules, routine and administration are an end in themselves. Since they are paid more than the teacher whose work they direct, they wrongly believe that their work is more important and calls for a higher degree of intelligence and ability.
This transfers value to activities other than those of the classroom, and the teacher is forever trying to achieve a position where she has to do less teaching and more supervision. Teaching and learning are relegated to the background, and creative stimulation, which is the crux of the educational process, gets neglected.
Ruling by fear
In most schools the principal’s prestige does not depend upon the goodwill and friendship she is able to inspire among the staff but on fault-finding, bullying, withholding promotions, denying opportunities and fear. Often the teacher meets the principal as if she were a guilty child called up for a reprimand. The principal plays the policeman in most schools and the staff meetings are subdued assemblies in which teachers tacitly ratify and agree to all that the principal peremptorily suggests. If education is a cooperative enterprise, the principal may have as much to learn from the teacher as the latter from the former, helping and consulting each other for better stimulation of the child towards creative work.
Contemporary thinking in education stresses the idea that the personality of the child should be respected. But how can you respect the personality of the child when you neglect the personality of the teacher? She too wishes to have a sense of achievement to attempt and accomplish something worthwhile. But most principals take the good work done by teachers for granted. The more the teacher does responsibly, the more the principal seems to feel that it is the teacher’s duty to do it as she is being paid for it. The average teacher is made to feel a failure and that what is done well in the school would not have been so but for the ever vigilant headmaster. The teacher feels unappreciated and frustrated about life and work.
The merits of appreciation
An ideal principal should be a sympathetic and understanding leader. She should have the ability to recognise and appreciate generously the worthwhile things being done in her school. She should
make it her mission to discover merit no matter where she finds it.
Every human being has a strong desire for recognition of their accomplishments. The principal
should not miss giving credit wherever it is due. Having found merit and ability she should try to
use it in school. If a junior teacher does something noteworthy it is for the principal to persuade the
senior teachers to adopt it.
In every school there are degrees of efficiency and no principal can secure a fully satisfactory staff.
But if she has an understanding heart and insight into human nature, she will help her colleagues overcome their shortcomings and serve their profession and society better. Creative administration
will keep the spirit of effort, adventure and initiative alive.
It is not sufficient to pick and choose the right people and weed out the wrong ones. Leaders should be able to stimulate the right ones to accomplish more and guide the inefficient ones to emulate the better ones’ example.
An average teacher who graduates from the training college is qualified for the job. Her education and training testify to this, but if she is not able to achieve even the minimum level of efficiency, the principal should scrutinise the conditions under which the teacher is working and also examine her own attitude towards the latter’s work. A principal who is not a keen student of human nature does
not deserve this position of responsibility.
Every teacher in the school should have ample opportunities to do things at their own initiative and
responsibility. The principal regards herself as the only conscientious worker and the only person
who knows: she thinks the best can be extracted from teachers only by leading them by the
nose. The teacher is made to feel that she is more an automaton, mechanical and submissive with
no sense of initiative and adventure, with no desire to experiment and try out new plans and ideas.
Even in deciding about the school’s events such as a talent exhibition day, PTA meetings, annual
day events, she is not consulted. It is not realised that unless she accepts whole-heartedly
all the decisions that are taken, she cannot do her best nor can she cooperate fully.
Finally the principal should, so far as it lies in her power, strive to make all those who work with her
happy and contented. With a human touch here and there, the principal can enlist their cooperation,
goodwill and devotion. She should know that no one can be successful unless they are happy.
Mr.Raghaveeran is Senior Principal and Mrs.Yogalakshmi is English teacher at Jeeva Memorial Public
School, Thirukazhukundram, Tamil Nadu.
