Chapter 2: The Teacher as Schmidt            

 





I discovered the meaning of Mr. Newkirk's title for this chapter.  He has gone back into history to find out where many of our teaching dilemmas originated.  In 1899 when the U.S. was at war with Spain, pig iron was needed for the war effort.  An efficient expert watched workers and decided that strictly controlling the movements of the workers, their work output would be doubled.  He began with a worker named Schmidt.  To earn more money, Schmidt had to work when told, rest when told, and never talk back or question.  It didn't take long for this concept to take hold in the educational field.  Obviously, Mr. Newkirk is equating the worker named Schmidt to today's teachers.

 

A plan was developed to enable larger urban school districts to become strictly organized and supervised.  One plan was William Harvey Wells' book, The Graded School: A Graded Course of Instruction for Public Schools with Copious Practical Directions to Teachers and Observations on Primary Schools, School Discipline, Schol Records, Etc ([1869] 1962).  I think the title pretty much says it all!  Schools were equated with businesses.  It was thought that by running a tightly controlled ship, the product could be attended to more efficiently, whether the product was pig iron or children.

 

Those supporting this principle asserted, "Teachers cannot be permitted to follow caprice in method.  When a method which is clearly superior to all other methods has been discovered, it alone can be employed..."  "The fundamental decisions about instruction must be made by management, not the 'rank and file'--for only a scientifically astute supervising class could oversee the full sequence of 'production.'"  Today we frequently hear all about research based teaching methods, etc.  While I value and read research, that doesn't mean that research can tell me the best way to help individual students.  As long as students are different from one another (and we know they are and always will be), teachers have to use much discretion in discovering the best way to help each unique individual.

 

The next part of chapter 2 is called "The Failure of Educational Research."  Another post will follow when I finish reading it.