has some means of transportation so her schedule may be made accord-
ing to the needs of her own work.
Professional Study Clubs.
Little attention was given to professional study clubs, as aids in
supervision during the past year. Very few counties seem to have
made systematic use of this means of professional growth. Where, in
the programs for group meetings definite provision was made for study
and discussion of one or more books on education, the results were most
encouraging. One serious handicap to the growth of teachers in service
is the lack of a library of well selected professional books. Several
counties have recognized this need, and have placed in the superinten-
dent's office a good educational library to circulate among the teachers.
The good effect of this policy is seen in the better professional spirit of
the teaching corps, and in a higher quality of classroom instruction.
Reports by Counties.
The answers to Part One are summarized in the table on page 85.
The replies to Parts Two and Three follow :
ALLEGANY COUNTY.
Reported by Miss Marion S. Hanckel.
1. As Allegany is more thickly populated in parts than are some of the other
counties in Maryland, our Assistant Superintendent visited, last year, the schools
of one and two-rooms, and I visited those of three or more rooms only. I had
the supervision of the first four grades in each school.
2. The number of teachers per school varied from eight in the elementary
school of the Beall High School in Frostburg to two teachers for the four grades
in such three-room schools as Ellerslie or Lord. The average number of teachers
in my schools was about one teacher for each grade, though there are few schools
that do not have parts of two grades in one room.
I visited each teacher on an average of once a month. If I felt any teacher
needed special help, I visited her twice a month. I met the teachers at my office
every Saturday except when I held group meetings, and then 1 met them after
4 P. M. at my office, any afternoon that was convenient to the teacher.
Among the helpful things I tried to do for the teachers at my office were
giving suggestions for the teaching of all the school subjects, lending them books
for study and reference, and lending materials, pictures, and toys, etc., for them
to use in their school rooms, or as models to make equipment at home. I also
helped the teachers to plan seat-work, and to make number and word cards, etc.
Together we mimeographed arithmetic and other games, stories and poems. I
made it a point to see that each of them did her share of this work, because I
felt sure that if she really needed and wanted it, she would be willing to work
for it.
3. When I first visited these teachers last year, I realized that, as I was a
stranger, I must first win their confidence and faith in my desire to serve them,
Annual Report of the State Board of Education
85
H
IT
05
•
â– w
^2
''
QC
in
Si ife. cc â–º- c
b b ks b b
*. >-• to CO
c o 65 p
b in b b
00
b
r]
05
= o ts to o
o = o c
c
a
B .-1
■u fl p>»
50
u-5 Q M •*•
= t-
»-H
â– "
*— '
M
2-3 "
•*
t-; S in lO
t-
00.-
s
"3 ^
— c\
§3°
fi
b d b CO
b t-^
a
.|i
•f
_ t»
00
C3 in .<(< t-
«o t-
in 05
a
S
= S
s«-
35 C^ rH r-(
JO
^- 05
IC
w "-^
— w
CO
M
a
o
OS
o
Q.
2
a
o
CO 4) S
11.5
2 c 1
> .2
"" oi
S g
s =
3 M „ S
It
1
a
2
a
=
>
3
.
II
3
. ai
2 IS
*^ 3 â–
. 1) S
M 3 2 J=
a
3
*,£?
,-
J3 .5 O
3 S 2
â– r
-
_4
3
c
* t; :;
000
ac
s
-"2~
a c 2 ~
a %2
3 s a
«
a
a
S og
t. ^ s
5 £ £ §>,
r D O ^^ ^
B ° ^
=
BBS
= 3 '=
2
9
c
2 £ a
3
K
<j < S H
^ -^
-^ <1 -sj
ts
<
^"^
< 3
i§.
a
a a a
oi oj oi
=i £ £
"^ 5 S
t.
l-i U
a
a ^ a a
•a 'a "o
22
£
^
o
05
§ a g §
rt OO J5
2^0
.a
•si
03 n aj
o
B S 2 S
s s â– ^
t; £ fc.
p
.§
^
DM
LO
o o e
-^ ^ ^
^ .a
'^
^:S^ 1
Tf
.* aj c:
»-( t-i
m
■«-*
is O m
?-S;
t-
s t: i "=
.* 00 50
?S §
^
N
Si
§ .^ S ?S
â– <? 00
^
l^.-
<w 0) "3
o
M « erj
iH eo in
IM
so 05
o -a ca
03 o
°-^
? "
la
CO o « •
r-1 ^
05 • la
la
s
+4
. in
yj -w t;
m
H 1-1 T-t
1H
N
C3 "
r/1
0. of 1
In
Office
^
o o -* lo
000
-<
03
- 05
Ol
e^ r-l tH OJ
CO CO
M 03 00
++
• IM
Z 1
a
0) O'
•*
Ifl O rH rt
in w
rH 50
;^
- . w 1
°' flii
e^
lo eo 03
^ M M
■>»< CO Tjl
CO
50
• in
!» mQ
w c
^
03
Q 2 â–
oJ<
M
o o o in
.* *J
c5i m
05 [- C
â– is
2
»-i ^ i<
O
c<i in in M
t- 05
c*
+4
CO
"" -
z
!h
H
1?
^-. ^-^
Z
.2 t
P
â– 3
t>.
3
«.
o
ll
1 4
o
a
3
;S
L.
' ^
C
c â–
>,
S .M i!
=
C
<;
tf _i;
S 3 2 =
0) 'E 'S
-3 â– a
u a c
' t
c
.£
— "5
â– 3 5
- u, u a
ti GJ GJ
J
S ^.^
5
d
C
c
Q
fa
&:
d
O.
^
S
i
<5
1
^ 1
-"3 ^ s
i: . a; -S
H. — 4)
r S Z
2 ? 9
86 Annual Report of the State Board of Education
rather than to criticize them in any way. Therefore, for the first two (and
sometimes more) visits I taught any lesson they asked me to. I did not ask
them to teach for me. Neither did I suggest any changes in what they were
doing unless requested. After that I did ask them to teach for me, and tried to
understand their methods in teaching all of the school subjects. I made sugges-
tions for changing methods, materials, or subject-matter, but tried to use all that
they were doing that was good, and not confuse them with suggestions so radical
that they could not carry them out.
4. (a) -(e) Beside meeting the teachers individually, I held group meetings
of two hours' duration, at Barton, Frostburg and Cumberland as centers, on
fifteen Saturday mornings during the year. At these meetings we discussed
problems that the teachers had selected as important, such as the teaching of
reading" and courses of study in reading, language, arithmetic, etc. There was
great interest shown in these meetings. That was probably due to the fact that
they were optional and not compulsory. Except in two cases, no teachers missed
a meeting unless kept away by illness.
Through these group meetings I hope to develop more initiative and more
real thinking, less self-consciousness and a greater interest in their work, be-
cause of encouragement and a better understanding of what I want them to do.
1 feel that our last year's meetings were very valuable, as I think teachers gained
a new attitude towards the teaching of each subject discussed. Many were led
to discuss the problems, who said they had never been able to express themselves
in a group before. I gained their confidence in these meetings by making them
feel that they had a right to judge the courses of study I was making, and to
make changes in them. In ways too numerous to mention, I drew nearer to them
in their work and felt that these meetings were worth while.
5. In our county the Reading Circles are held in each school by the prin-
cipal of that school; but in my group meetings I tried to get from the teachers
any reactions I could from their reading of such books as Dr. Bachman's, Hall-
Quest's "Supervised Study," and Bolenius' "Teaching of Oral English." I had
read these books and I tried to apply the principles I found in them to my class-
work with the teachers.
Little inter-school visiting was done as visiting days were not given. How-
ever, a few such visits were made when a school could not be used for lack of
heat, or because an epidemic was threatening one of the rooms.
Among the illustrative materials sent out generally to the teachers were :
McMurry's Standards for Teaching, some second-grade spelling lists, some
arithmetic tests that were asked for, and some rough drafts of the new proposed
courses of study in reading, mathematics and language.
Part Three. — For the coming year I expect to pay monthly visits to all the
teachers in the twentj'-seven schools under my supervision, though in some
months, two visits to the same school may prevent my visiting all the schools.
Monthly meetings will be held on Friday afternoons instead of on Saturdays,
as during last year — at Cumberland, Frostburg and Barton as centers. I hope,
also, to meet with the rural teachers in three groups, in different sections of the
county, at least three times, and to visit their schools at least once.
I am hoping to complete at least a quantitative course of study in spelling,
writing and seat work. These will be discussed at the monthly meetings, as well
as other problems which my teachers' committee on programs will formulate
with me. This year, instead of classes, we hope to have real discussions that will
Annual Report of the State Board of Education 87
include all the teachers, and not a few as was the case last year. I have been
asked to start a story and game league for the three groups, and if enough
teachers wish to stay a third hour, I shall be glad to help in making such a league
helpful to them.
I shall be at my office every Saturday from 9 to 12 (and longer if necessary)
to give help to individual teachers; also on any afternoon that the teachers wish
to meet me there after school hours.
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY.
Reported by Miss Kate Kelly.
At the opening of the elementary schools of the county, September 25, 1916,
they were divided as follows: One-room schools, 49; two-room schools, 22;
three-room schools, 5; larger schools, 4. Eastport school, 8 teachers; Annapolis
school, 20 teachers; Brooklyn school, 15 teachers; Curtis Bay school, 15 teachers.
This made a total of 80 schools and 166 teachers to be supervised. Four addi-
tional teachers were added during the year.
The first problem of the supervisor was to find out the quality of instruction
in the schools at the time. This could be done only by seeing teachers and chil-
dren at vv'ork in the class-room, so the visiting began September 27.
The most pressing needs seemed to group themselves as follows :
General problems — (a) An appreciation of teaching as a profession.
(b) A different attitude toward supervision.
(c) Some concern for the child's physical and social needs.
(d) An understanding of the underlying principles deter-
mining subject-matter and method.
Specific needs — (a) A better proportion of time allotment in the tool studies.
(b) Better reading material and a different approach to the
subj ect.
(c) ]\Iore literature and less formal grammar.
(d) Introduction of games, handwork and music.
Four agencies offered a means of getting at the problems, viz. :
1. Teachers' meetings.
2. Class-room supervision.
3. Individual conferences outside of school.
4. Correspondence.-
I. Teachers' Meetings.
A general meeting of all teachers in the county was held early in October
at which time plans were outlined for future m.eetings. Because of the different
problems of the different types of schools, the teachers were divided as follows :
One-room School Group.
Two-room School Group.
Primary Section of larger schools.
Grammar Section of larger schools.
This afforded a chance to concentrate on the particular needs of each group in
turn, and the programs were planned accordingly. Five meetings of each group
were held. The sixth meeting was given to visiting other schools. Each group
met at the Annapolis Grammar School on the Fridays assigned, from 9-12 and
1-3. Luncheon was prepared and served by the classes in Domestic Science at
88 Annual Report of the State Board of Education
the High School, and the noon hour was spent in social intercourse. This proved
to be most successful as well as very pleasant.
Demonstration lessons were followed by a discussion of each s^^n, the reasons
therefor, and variations that might have been introduced.
Reading was the subject stressed throughout the year. A syllabus on the
teaching of reading was prepared and given each teacher. Four demonstration
lessons were taught by the supervisor to illustrate the method of procedure.
Reading as a thought-getting process, capable of giving much pleasure to reader
and hearers was the ideal constantly held up. Teachers were given a choice of
material and asked to try to have classes read more than the traditional two
books a .vear. When one set of books was finished, it was returned and another
set sent from the office.
Typewritten outlines for language were given out at the meetings and
explained. These consisted of suitable material in the way of stories, poems,
subjects for dramatization, picture study and suggestions for written work. A
keen interest in the substitution of language work for the formal grammar was
evidenced by all the children and most of the teachers. Lack of library facilities
made this work necessarily limited, but the typewriting classes at the High School
made it possible to send copies of" stories and poems, not otherwise accessible,
to schools in the country. The value and pleasure of original language work was
dwelt upon at length, and the results were excellent in some schools.
Daily schedules were worked out and copies given to those interested. These
provided a greater variety of work with less time given to over-stressed subjects.
The physiological, psychological, and pedagogical reasons for recommending these
changes were discussed at length.
2. (a) Class-Room Supervision.
Every teacher was asked to keep a weekly outline book in which was to be
recorded the work planned in each subject for the five days. The books were to
be ready on Monday morning for that week. The supervisor or superintendent,
in visiting the school, used this book to help in judging the way in which a teacher
was attacking the subject-matter problems. Suggestions were written on the
margin as a help to the teacher. All the teachers of the two-room schools were
a.sked to send in their books in the spring, and they were carefully gone over and
freely commented upon. The value of this in comparison with the work of care-
fully correcting the forty-four books is doubtful.
In all of the one, two, and three-room schools, each teacher was visited three
times during the year. In a few cases, more visits were made. Forty minutes
was the average time spent with each teacher.
(b) Individual Conferences.
Distances made this means of help impossible except in cases of the teachers
near Annapolis, and in occasional cases, when those from the country could get
to town. Eleven of these conferences were held by special appointment after
school hours on week days. Many were given on Saturdays at the office, and
many more after school and at recess periods in the different schools.
4. Teachers were asked to write the supervisor for suggestions and help
whenever needed. Responses were many and varied. Requests came for addi-
tional reading material for special purposes and grades, language helps, school-
room decoration, etc.
Annual Report of the State Board of Education 89
General Plans for Present Year.
1. Meetings.
Because of the difficulties of transportation in the winter, the superintendent
thinks it advisable not to plan for any meetings in January, February and March.
If the teachers in the town schools desire, meetings will be arranged for them.
A schedule of meeting dates is enclosed.
2. Class-room Supervision.
The supervisor plans to spend a longer time with the teacher at each visit
this year. With the basis that last year's visits furnished, this should secure
better results.
At the suggestion of the superintendent, work in the following subjects
will be supervised by him throughout the schools: phonics, spelling, geography,
arithmetic. The supervisor will handle the other subjects. It is planned to
concentrate on reading and language. Music, handwork and games will be
handled as they were last year. History, hygiene and agriculture will form
part of the reading and language material.
BALTIMORE COUNTY.
The twelfth yearbook of the National Society for the Study of
Education, Part II, 1913, contains an article by County Superintendent
Albert S. Cook, of Baltimore county, on "The Development of a County
System of Expert Supervision, Including Suburban, Milage and Rural
Schools.''
This gives a history of supervision in Baltimore county as well as its
status at the time of the publication of the year book, and was furnished
by Superintendent Cook as a report from his county. The limits of
this article permit only brief quotations from his report.
Baltimore county has an area of 630 square miles, with a population of
123,000 and is entirely separate and distinct from Baltimore city. There are in
the county, in round numbers, fifty one-teacher schools, fifty tzvo-teacher schools
and forty-five schools having from three to forty-nine teachers-. The larger
schools are mainly in the belt almost surrounding Baltimore city, and are easily
reached by trolley from the city. The one and two-teacher schools and several
consolidated schools are almost entirely in strictly rural communities.
In the year 1900 the supervisory force consisted of a superintendent and
assistant superintendent, having the usual administrative duties of a county super-
intendent, and, in addition, having the financial and clerical work involved in
accounting for all expenditures on the schools. These two officials visited each
school twice a year, each devoting about one hundred of the two hundred days
the schools were open to the work. No more was possible. The principal of
each school was a teaching principal, responsible at all times for a class, and
therefore able to do only the administrative work of the school, \\it\i no time
for grade supervision.
In my judgment, based on years of observation and visitation of schools in
various cities, expert grade supervision is the most difficult, as well as the most
necessary aid to good teaching to be secured in any system of schools. Be this
as it may, the plan for a beginning in grade supervision was within our reach.
90 Annual Report of the State Board of Education
and, as the first four grades contained many more pupils than the four higher
grades, in September, 1905, an expert in primary work was appointed Supervisor
of Primary Grades. She began work in the first grade of nine of our larger
suburban schools. After visiting these schools with me, and studying conditions
for two weeks, the supervisor arranged to meet the twenty-three first-grade
teachers in one of our schoolrooms on the second and fourth Friday afternoons
of each month, to outline work, and to suggest how to plan all phases of primary
work — language, reading, number, nature-study, stories, games, physical activities
and seat work. The supervisor then visited each of these teachers twice in three
weeks, spending more or less time with each teacher as circumstances required.
Daily classroom visits were made, observing, teaching and testing the classes
as occasion seemed to demand. Conferences were held after dismissal of classes,
either with the individual teacher visited, or with groups of teachers, and the
subject-matter and method of work as presented were discussed.
The Board during this second year appointed one of the most efficient
primary teachers as substitute teacher. Part of her work was to relieve the
grade teacher for a day, so that a day's visit to another school might be made.
The substitute spent a day with a teacher, previous to her visiting day, becoming
acquainted with her work, giving her help in lesson plans, management of class,
drawing and hand-work, then taking the day's work in the teacher's absence.
In September, 1908, a Grammar-Grade Supervisor was appointed. She
began work with three groups of teachers, meeting two of the groups, fifth
grade and sixth grade, at the town office, and a group of rural-school teachers
at a rural school centrally located in their district. There were about twenty-
five teachers in each of these groups so that the work of about seventj'-five class-
rooms was influenced. This organization of the work continued for two years.
In September, 1910, the Seventh-Grade Group was organized, and in Sep-
tember, 1911, the Eighth-Grade Group. In all, the Grammar-Grade Supervisor
had five groups of teachers, averaging twenty-five each. The number of after-
noon meetings of each group with the supervisors was gradually reduced from,
one or more a month to five stated meetings a year ; but the supervisors may
call any small group of teachers to a three o'clock meeting not oftener than once
a month for any one teacher. In practice, no teacher attends such a meeting
more than two or three times a year ; many, none at all.
The extreme limit for good grade supervision for one grade supervisor is
one hundred teachers. As this limit was reached and passed in 1911, and as we
were requiring help from the supervisors in other groups of teachers, the problem
of an addition to our supervisory force confronted us. Either an additional
expert supervisor for some of the intermediate grades between second and sixth
could be provided, or one of the most efficient grade teachers in the primary and
grammar grades might be chosen to assist each of the two supervisors. After
a thorough consideration of this problem for more than a year by the Board of
Education, the supervisors and superintendents, for we saw the problem far
ahead, we unanimously decided for the teacher assistant. Each supervisor was
permitted to choose her assistant, and in each case an exceptionally strong teacher
was chosen, naturally; but also a teacher who was especially strong in some
phase of the work where the supervisor needed most help herself; in one case,
music; in the other, industrial arts. Both of these teachers assist in the various
'First published Report of the Supervisor of Primary Grades.
Annual Report of the State Board of Education 91
kinds of office and field work, and the supervisors have an expert stenographer
three weeks out of every four; the other week of the stenographer's time is
given to extra work in the office of the superintendents.
Beginning in 1910, the superintendent organized an all-day meeting five times
a year for one-teacher rural schools. These meetings were in a measure pre-
paring the way for the appointment of a special supervisor in this field."
A plan which the Board has had under consideration for the past five or six
3'ears was announced in September, 1912. A supervisor of rural schools was
appointed. The delay was in part due to the difficulty in securing a man properly
equipped for the work who was thoroughly familiar with the school situation in
the rural districts of the county. We wanted a man who knew the work of the
elementary school well enough to be an excellent grade supervisor, but who had
grown up in a rural community, and had taught in a one-teacher rural school.
The Board unanimously elected Mr. Clarence G. Cooper, who had taught a one-
teacher school in 1900, and had passed through the various positions as principal
up to the pirncipalship of one of our largest schools ; who had then gone to
teach in the Speyer School, New York, taken a Bachelor's degree and diploma
in teaching in Teachers' College, Columbia University, and had then returned to
organize one of our largest schools in a new suburban district. I mention this to