PED 3102 Blog Post #2

Regulating the Regulators:

The Disciplining of Teachers in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Smaller (1997)

This chapter focuses on the regulation, supervision and control that teachers faced in the nineteenth century. In 1846 the Common School Act was created and the educational autonomy was taken away from the community and instead a set of administrative structures were put into place. Local elite were tasked with educational management and changes started to happen. Effective and universal teacher training was mandated in Ontario. Teachers had to go through examination and certification that needed to be retested every year to continue teaching. Supervision and inspection became a large focal point and officials were to oversee teacher’s work in the schools, centralizing the control over teachers and teaching practices. Both teachers and parents did not respond well to the strict and arbitrary ways in which everything was happening.

I feel that this chapter sheds a light on a pivotal moment in time for teachers. While I think it is important that they mandated some sort of quality based training program I feel that they took it too far and made the process too rigorous. As the chapter states teachers were loosing sight of the task at hand and their students were suffering as a result. In terms of supervision and inspection I feel that not a lot has changed since these days. In the nineteenth century routines of inspection and evaluation of teachers were becoming the norm. Today I feel that these issues are just as prevalent. The controls and structure of the school system were beginning to change, higher up officials begin to shape it into what they wanted to see. I feel that not a lot has changed today; the idea of control is still prevalent in that teachers become very focused on the mandated curriculum and being regulated that sometimes they forget that the main focus of the job is the students.

What examples of supervision and control have you seen put in place in your CSL placement schools?

Why do you think there is an emphasis on this idea of having teachers under such supervision and control?