Ethel Craig

Publication Date

8-1936

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Bert Smith

Degree Program

Department of Educational Administration, Leadership and Research

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

Personal efficiency is an increasing problem before the American public. Every agency that will aid in the successful accomplishment of any desirable goal should become a matter of thoughtful consideration. Success, as defined by a lexicographer, is a favorable end or result; therefore it may become an ever advancing goal toward which an individual moves.

Failure by the same authority, is the set of falling short of success. There is a divine principle within the heart of man that responds to the rhythmic progression of success; while the most callous individual retires to the sanctity of his private world to grieve over an unattained citadel.

Education in a changing world is attempting to keep pace with the march of time. Life moves fast; therefore education too must hurry. Some traditions are being done away with in favor of new ideas, but so far only in the dreams of some modern Aladdin is the school-room equipped with a loud-speaker to replace the teacher’s voice, a motion-picture to supplement or supplant the textbook, and a mechanical robot to bind the youthful ---- of grammar, hearts, and ideals.

As long as schools are a fundamental necessity to public welfare, so long is the success or failure of the teacher a matter of public concern. Too long have the cant phrases of “molders of human clay” or “weavers of destiny” been applied to teachers. The time is ripe for a recognition of the teacher as an entity within himself. Clay is an inanimate mass that remains as the potter’s wheel leaves it; cloth is a dead matter of dyes and cellulose. The child is neither an inanimate mass, nor dead matter. He is an individual who respects clean dress, clean school rooms, and clean morals, and responds to them in direct proportion to their appeal in presentation. He knows intuitively whether the teacher is a success or not, and appreciates him just that far. Possibly through no one of the paramount initiatory experiences of life is there more lasting mental pattern than the teacher is responsible for, but tied very closely to these influences are the personal successes or failures of these same teachers. In this belief, the present study has been undertaken with the hope of showing that many of the things that make a teacher poor are of such a nature that improvement lies wholly within the power of the individual in question.

Disciplines

Education | Elementary Education and Teaching | Teacher Education and Professional Development

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