Glickman Notes Postmoderism and Supervision

Glickman, C. (1992). Introduction: Postmodernism and supervision. In C. Glickman (Ed.), Supervision in transition: 1992 yearbook of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (pp. 1-3). ASCD.

·      "When schools become decentralized, engage in shared governance, and see themselves as the center of action research, the term supervisor or supervision has little meaning to staff members (p. 2)."

·      Nature of the word: "'Supervision,' as a term derived from its industrial roots of closely inspecting the work of employees, is also antithetical (and a bit disgusting) to them. Instead, educators, students, and parents see themselves in control of their own actions and their own concepts (p. 2)."

·      Conflicting views - the supervisor as inspector must have a generic understanding of teaching and learning and evaluates teachers through measuring their effectiveness on rating scales and checklists. Supervision in transition is school-based supervision - "A shifting view of supervision as a school-based collegial process, based on reflection, uncertainty, and problem solving, has been finding acceptance in schools that are recasting their roles and responsibilities of teachers. A further area of shifting views has been from an emphasis on pedagogy to a focus on the interaction of content (subject knowledge) and instruction (pp. 2-3)."

·      "Instead, we might be seeing every talented educator (regardless of role) as an instructional leader and supervisor of instruction. If so, indeed, the old order will have crumbled (p. 3)."