School Organization and Administration

School Organization

School Organization
“Organization of a school is the administrative expression of educational theory.”
Elsbree

Meaning of School Organization
In order to understand the meaning of school organization, we have to understand the two terms—school and organization separately and then the meaning of both combined.

Meaning of School
A school is the institution where schooling is provided to the young students. It is a place for learning and education. It is also called a temple of learning. The learners assemble here, sit together under the same roof, on the same floor or carpet or desks and learn from the same teacher irrespective of castes, color and creed. It is here that teaching-learning has been institutionalized.

The school has not to be looked only as a place where knowledge is imparted in the traditional manner but as a place where the child is prepared for life through life-like experiences. Here he listens and reads about the experiences of others, acquires his own experiences and carried out some experiments.

Meaning of Organization
Different educationists have defined this combined term of school organization in various ways:
Sears. J.B. Sears considers organization as a machine for doing work. It may be composed primarily of persons, of materials, of concepts, symbols, forms, rules, principles or more often, of a combination of these. The machine may work automatically or its operation may be subject to human judgment and will.
Ryburn. “Organization simply means the practical measures which we take to ensure that system of work we use will be of the greatest possible assistance in carrying out our aims and of the greatest benefit to our children.”

Organization stands for a structure, framework, system, organized body, assortment, organism, a set or collection. It is concerned with the process of regulations, forms, calendars, schedules, material equipment, human equipment, libraries, laboratories, workshops, museums, art galleries, lawns, playgrounds and other facilities of work. Thus organization has three aspects:
1. Organization of Material Equipment
It involves organization of building, campus, grounds, accommodation, furniture, fittings, libraries, laboratories, workshops etc.
2. Organization of Human Equipment
It involves organization of students, teaching staff, ministerial staff, menial staff, inspecting staff, experts, boards of managements, etc.

3. Organization of Ideas and Principles
The desirable ideas and principles are organized and translated into school systems, time schedules, norms of achievement, rules and regulations, curricular and co-curricular programs.
Thus organization deals with making systematic arrangements so that the purposes of the entire program are achieved. The school has to function as an effective and efficient organization. Good organization ensures unity of action, efficiency, economy, optimum utilization of resources, well being, all round satisfaction and good results. Without proper organization there would be confusion, chaos and haphazard activity resulting into wastage of time, effort and resources.

Meaning of Administration
Etymologically: The term administration has been derived from the Latin word ‘ministic’ which means service rendered to others for their welfare.
Dictionary: The Oxford Dictionary explains administration as ‘management of business, management of public affairs, government, etc.’ The word business, public affairs and government are used here to indicate some form of organization or institution. Thus administration may be defined as the management of an institution or organization. The management means to run, handle, conduct or control. Administration stands for handling, conducting and controlling of an organization.
Ryburn: Administration is not primarily concerned with arrangements, time table, scheme of study, type of building, records etc., but it is concerned with attitude of our work and with the children with whom we work.

Educational administration is therefore a comprehensive effort intended to achieve some specific educational objectives and it deals with educational policies and practices. It stands for planning, directing, controlling, executing and evaluating the educative process.

It is again concerned with both: (i) human resources and (ii) material resources
(i) Human Resources: Among the human elements with which administration is intimately concerned are the children, parents, teachers, administrators, other employees, citizens in general, employers, Universities and Boards of Education, and officials at local, state and national levels.
(ii) Material Resources: On the material side educational administration is concerned with funds, buildings, grounds, equipments and other institutional supplies.

Beyond these two elements are ideas, curricula, courses, rules and regulations, laws, methods, community requirements and so on. The coordination of all these elements into a unified effort is the main role and function of educational administration.

Parents’ Words of Wisdom

A Warm Family

The word “Family” means love or warmth. It is to be shared by persons who also share a common family name. In the West, wives adopt their husband’s family names and the couples addressed each other as “my home’s man” or “my family’s woman” respectively.

When you were young, we lived happily together. We played together, ate together and did everything together in a very lively atmosphere. After a day of hard work, no matter how tired we were, we felt completely relieved to see you coming to help us carrying things and ask us about our work. We were happy to see you sleep and eat well. This satisfaction is what people use to call a warm family.

Now that you have grown up and as brothers and sisters you must love each other. As you are biologically related you cannot disregard each other. As old saying states: “You can never cut water into pieces, and in the same way, you can never really estrange brothers and sisters”. You should not despise each other. Don’t be stingy, or get angry and vengeful. You must be helpful to each other and look after each other.

It is shameful for you as brothers and sisters to have any quarrels. Good siblings do not quarrel and should think of your parents’ feelings and concerns. Remember that when you were young, after you fought each other, you reconciled and you started to play together. You forgot your quarrel and forgave each other. You loved each other, and you cooperated again as it was. It is good to recall past memories and study them. If you think that you are grown up, forgive the bad incidents of the past. Beloved children, you can look for a new partner and even have a new child, but you cannot replace your brothers and sisters because their number is fixed. To disown your brothers and sisters, means you cut the flesh of your parents.

The following is the rendering of a Khmer poem into English:

A warm family environment requires that parents and children must live according to the dhamma. Don’t be influenced by your sense-desires but stick to blessings that yield beautiful life and endowed with virtuous mind.

Blessing 4

Living in a Suitable Environment

“If human stay in an area conductive to growth, as a result they will make positive progress very easy.”

What is an appropriate area and location is?
An appropriate area and location means a good environment that is not poisonous to either physical and or mental health.
Somewhere
* Positive support the occupant, by giving them a place to reside, work and build a future in which they can progress quickly and continue to develop their morality and integrity.
e.g. house, school, educational establishments, places where we work, community in the village, town or city, the roads, safety, health, utilities and general aspects of life.

How to live in a suitable environment
1. Choose a location that is appropriate and thriving
It should be easy to find good schools, appropriate employment and a good location for building a house.
2. Positive development of the location to its fullest potential
We must try with all of our effort to assist in the development of our choose area where we live.

Characteristics of an appropriate area

1. Shelter that is convenient and comfortable
- A place should be in a good geographical location
- A house should be somewhere free from flooding, threat of subsidence and built on land that is appropriate for housing.
- Ample utilities e.g. electricity and water supply, the schools must be suitable and in good conditions plus there needs to be adequate and good ventilations in both public buildings and our houses too.
- The area we live should be fairly quiet, with parks and sport fields for exercise and needs to be maintained for our safety and general health.
- Should be shops sited in the area of your residences and the transportation and communication links should be convenient and safe.

2. Food is available and health
- The area should produce and supply good quality food, having markets nearby an area where agriculture is in production so that food will be sufficient.
- Clean, safe drinking water. We need to know that this can be supplied and enough to met our needs.
- Our employment should provide enough of a salary to enable us provide adequately for everyone in our family.

3. Good people residing in the area
- The majority of people living in the vicinity need to have a good character, positive habits, morality, disciples and a positive outlook to the future of the community.

4. The area should have the Dhamma readily available.
The sensuality of a location refers to two characteristics in the context:
- Worldly sense: The area should have good educational systems, with good Principles and teachers. Governor should also be efficient, ethical and moral.
- Dhamma sense: The area should have monks or spiritual teachers and religious students who are qualified to instruct the citizens in morality and ethical conduct. The inhabitants of the area should practice generosity, observe precepts, listen to sermons, meditate and pray regularly.

Prioritizing these four factors
- Availability of Dhamma
- Availability of good people residing in the area
- Availability of food and provisions
- Availability of proper shelter both religious and worldly

Points for Consideration
We need to consider the fact that if there is little or no presence of Dhamma, or any chance to progress the mind with understanding, then the true value of that location must be put to serious questioning. Reflecting on this, perhaps many citizens in a country described like this, on waking up in the morning, their minds with automatically are full with thoughts of work and not their spiritual life.
They do not have the time to think or perform merit making activities such as donations, preserving precepts, or meditating and praying. Therefore, although they are living their life, their progression spiritually, as a person is as if they are already ‘dead’, especially from the lack moral virtue.

Methods of making a Cozy Home
1. Keep your home maintained and tidy
2. Choose food, and cook meals that are healthy. Try to be an ‘inventive’ cook, and prepare and serve meals that fusty and nutritious.
3. Encourage all family members to respect each other by being a good role model. Be hard working and show generosity to each other with a kind and compassionate heart.
4. Encourage others to go to the temple and make merit, observe precepts, listen to the monks, speak and train the mind in concentration through regular meditation, providing a plentiful supply of Dhamma Books, and create a special room or area in the house for prayer and meditation.

The Benefits of Staying in an Appropriate Environment
1. Receive happiness and joy.
2. Make both worldly and spiritual progress.
3. Perform great merit.
4. Have wealth and know what one should believe.
5. Monks and teachings will be readily available.
6. Will meet with interesting and spiritually developed people.
7. Will see and know things clearly.
8. Will study the Dhamma, Precepts and Meditation to an advanced level.
9. Excellent speech and intellectual skill.
10. Have a good memory and ability to recollect thing easily.
11. Have a good examples and role-models encouraging positive self development for the better.
12. Will have Right View and Understanding.
13. Will know the way to achieve the ultimate life goal, which is the Path to Nibbana.

School Organization and Administration

Introduction

School is one of the most important institutions in any society. It is set up by the society with a large number of objectives which are of a very important nature. It has to play a crucial role in the building up of the society which builds it. The function of developing the future citizens in entrusted to the school. As a future citizen the child enjoys certain rights. The society is under obligation to fulfill those rights. Organizing efficient and good school for its children is one of the primary responsibilities of a society or state. When we look to the below-mentioned rights of the children, we are in a better position to understand the necessity of school organization and administration and the role of society or state in this respect.


Rights of the Children

1. Every child has the right to a satisfactory, and up to date, education.
2. The child has the right to an educational program that bridges the gap between home and school, and between school and future life.
3. Every child has the right to schooling under healthy conditions.
4. Every child has the right to get for his educational needs the required funds from the resources of community, state and nation.
5. Every child has the right to educational service and guidance during the entire year throughout the period of his education.
6. The child has the right to teachers, supervisors and administrators who understand him and who are educated to deal effectively with his needs and problems.
7. Every child has the right for training through the school to participate in community life and nature.
8. Every child has the right through his school to health services, educational and vocational guidance, library facilities, and recreational activities. In special circumstances, the school may have to provide for special service like mid-day meals, transportation facilities, etc.
The above mentioned rights and demands of the children can be fulfilled only through a very efficient school system. The efficiency of the school system can be ensured not by providing only a magnificent building to it, but by organizing and administering it on ideal lines in every way. A good building is just one small factor. There is the human element in the form of pupils, teachers and administrator without which the body of a school is incomplete and even inconceivable. Although the structure of a school is also raised by bricks and mortar but the more important things about a school are the ideas, ideals, aims and the spirit behind its structure. Its administration is also not to be on the same pattern as the administration of a factory or a department.



From: Kulbir Singh Sidhu, “School Organization and Administration”

Parents’ Words of Wisdom

Real Feelings

My Beloved children, now you have grown up, we hope you have some understanding about life. Moreover, we hope you have come to realize how much we, as your parents, love you. You are our pupils or our most important internal living organs.

You also know that we, parents, do not work hard just for our own sakes, but mainly for your wellbeing. We say this, not because we want your gratitude, but because we wish you to become good people.

In fact, we really need your help, but we cannot spell it out. Please understand that although we have everything we really need, we still wish to receive gifts from you, even though those gifts may not be as expensive or good as they should be. Still, we are extremely joyful once we know that the gift we receive is from our beloved son or daughter.

In fact, no matter how fully we have been fed, we are always genuinely pleased to taste any food you offer us. Also, no matter how plain the clothes you offer are, we always want to wear them to please you. Even when nothing has been received as gift from you, we are always joyful in your presence and your joined-hands kneeling salute.

The main blessing that all parents want from their beloved sons and daughters is to see each one develop good hearts and reasoning, good deeds, and righteous speech. Their children must know how to distinguish between merit and misdeed according to the truth. We cannot tell you to kneel and greet us or buy us good fruits, and for this reason, some parents, even up to their last breath have never received a salute from their children.

The following is the rendering of a Khmer poem into English:

Keep your parents’ words, the words of their heart, which are precious. They are collection of wise words from the past based on Buddhist teachings.

Bright like morning sun’s golden rays, parents’ words should be remembered. And they are comparable to sunlight and as valuable as gold. The world is bright due to the sun, and parents are the living Buddha that can be compared to the morning rising sun. Parents are in the East and they are worthy of salute from their children. East means ancestors who gave birth to many children on earth and their words are as bright as the sunlight illuminating the world.

Learning English with Misterduncan

Blessing 3

Expressing Respect to Those Worthy of Respect

* When Buddhists talk about respect they mean “special respect”

* The idea of expressing respect for someone you specially respect is to help you form them.

* Some people you specially respect can be celebrities or famous personages, your relatives. You might regard them as your hero.

* It is important to pick the right sort of person as your hero.

* Good habits and good quality of mind is important to choose role models.

* We try to treat those people respectfully as a way to learn the maximum of goodness from that person and attempt to instill those qualities upon ourselves.

* Adults should teach their children to worship the Buddha as a way to teach them to respect those who are worthy of respect.

Who should we respect?

1. The Buddha is considered to be the wisest among all living beings. He has wisdom, purity, and compassion.

2. Monks are individuals who teach themselves before teaching anybody else to ensure that what they preach is right.

3. The monarch who uses the Dhamma doctrine to govern his land.

4. Fathers, mothers, and older relatives who are well-behaved.

5. Teachers who knowledgeable and display positive behavior.

6. Virtuous employers are those who act as a positive role-model, and apply Dhamma in their daily life.

7. Anyone who is considered to be the wise and who are in a higher position.

The following items are also considered to be worthy of respect.

1. The Buddha’s Dhamma teachings, Buddha statues, or any locations associated with the Buddha, e.g. his birth place.

2. Anything that is related to the monastic community, such as images of the monks.

3. The moral teachings of the wise, photos of the parents, teachers, virtuous employers, monarchs who take their role as the wise seriously.

Ways to Show Respect to Worthy Ones

1. Physical Respect: We should pay respect when being in front of images or statues representing those worthy of respect regardless of whether we are sitting, walking, or sleeping. It is not enough just to “have respect” but one should “express respect” by bowing putting one’s hands in a gesture of prayer in greeting or by other methods.

2. Verbal Respect: We should show respect by sincerely saying good things when being in front of and behind those worthy of respect. For example: This can be done through saying prayers to the Buddha, to praise him.

3. Mental Respect: We should always remember and remind ourselves of the teachings given to us by those worthy of respect.

Two Ways to Express Respect

1. Physical Token of Respect: This refers to a gift that is used as a way for us to express our respect to our parents or teachers. For example, sharing our wages with parents or saying prayers to the Buddha’s statues.

2. Gesture of Respect: This refers to consistently apply the teachings of those worthy of respect into our own lives. For example, try to stop our own anger, rage, greed, and indulgence by practice giving, keeping precepts, and meditating regularly.

Those that are not worthy of respect

1. Do not express respect, support, or praise the fools even if they are in a high position and a high social standing.

2. Do not worship anything related to fools, such as images, sculptures, or objects that used by fools. Also, do not follow their advice.

3. Do not worship anything that is empty of virtue, such as the pictures of actors, singers, or athletes who do not have moral principles.

4. Do not worship anything that is useless and does not create wisdom, such as trees, mountains, shrine, ghosts or spirits, and animals.

Three ways to bow

The way Buddhists worship the Buddha is by bowing. But those who bow can be placed in three categories.

1. The more they bow, the more they are tired. These individuals are those who bow to imitate others without understanding the reason.

2. The more they bow, the more stupid they become. These individuals bow and pray for something inappropriate, such as asking to win the lottery or getting good grades without studying.

3. The more they bow, the more intelligent they become. These individuals hold on to the Buddha’s Dhamma and follow his footsteps.

* The first bow: reminds us of the wisdom the Buddha.

* The second bow: remind us of the purity of the Buddha.

* The third bow: remind us of the Buddha’s kindness for preaching to so many people without thinking of his own tiredness.

The benefits of expressing respect to those worthy of respect

1. Have continued right views in any situation.

2. Have polite and gentle behaviors; to become a respectable person.

3. Have a clear mind, because of the constant positive thinking of doing the right thing.

4. Gain intelligence because of the careful and calm behaviors, which dissolve one’s carelessness.

5. Safe from negative thinking and behaviors.

6. Gain a confidence and able to protect oneself from any disasters.

7. Free to worship those who are worthy of respect because the unworthy no longer exists in one’s life.

8. Express respect to these individuals is to praise the wise highly.