Teachers First

This thesis carries out the historical exploration of college management.Nowadays, college teacher management has so many problems that it has been questioned from management ideas, management mechanism, management system, management methods to teacher evaluation, organization culture, etc. The thesis holds the view that all these problems result from the absence of the clear mind on how the college can conscientiously exercise its function.Inheriting culture and innovating science are the college's duties, and teaching and researching are the college teacher's duties, in this case, the college teacher's doing well is the precondition of the college's doing well. Meanwhile, college's basic function tells us that if the college wants to get rid of the trouble of teacher management, it has to carry out "teachers first management", which has three meanings:the first is that the teachers are the base of the college's standpoint and development, the second is that the college has to ensure teachers to be the main body of managing the college since the run of the college depends on the teachers, and the third is that the college has to create suitable conditions to promote teachers development which will bring the college's development. The thesis holds the view that dealing with the relation between the college and teachers in the direction of teacher-first idea will neither hinder dealing with the relation between the college and students in the direction of student-first idea, nor hinder dealing with the relation between teachers and students in the direction of student-first idea.Since the college management of the Republic of China is so different from that of nowadays:the former provides us the aesthetic feeling while the later provides us unsatisfied feeling, the thesis takes the National Teacher College, the very important college of the Republic of China, as the object of study and expects to find the general rule of college teacher management out from the National Teacher College's teacher-oriented idea and the related management practice.The National Teacher College was set up in Lantian Town, Anhua County, Hunan Province, in1938. It was born in the war and in the situation that the government realized that teachers in every level was carrying the tough tasks and if teachers were not trained strictly in personality, science idea and profession, they could not finish their tasks well. In this case, the system of teacher's education was set up and promoted the development of our country's higher education. It's well known that the conditions for running the National Teacher College were very tough:the war made it move everywhere, cutting down expense and inflation made it face the financial hardship, political culture controlled by the government squeezed it, and some people discriminated teacher's education. However, the National Teacher College kept high-spirited and dealt well with the relation to the government, meanwhile, it promoted the teacher college's honor and at last it succeeded in running the school, and got great achievements.The achievements of the National Teacher College resulted from its idea of running the college. On the relation between teachers and the college, the presidents of the college in history all regarded "teachers as the college's lifeline" and thought teachers were decisive to the college. On the relation between president of the college and teachers, their idea was that president should depend on teachers and should keep a harmonious relationship with teachers, and president and teachers should help each other. In order to establish a first-grade teacher-team, all the presidents of the college in different periods tried their best to avoid weaknesses and succeeded in inducting and hiring good teachers by grasping chances, creating hopes of the new college, using the personality charm of the managers, applying a lot of important influential people, getting enough use of the excellent humanistic and natural environment, being honest, and improving pay and conditions, etc. In running the college, all the presidents managed to bring teachers'power into play and create suitable conditions to promote teachers'development by perfecting the infrastructure, creating harmonious and happy atmosphere, adding new books and reference materials, keeping publishing work, encouraging academic exchange, improving teachers'welfare, and setting teacher's qualification in the way of combining review and employment, etc.With the National Teacher College's carrying out the management idea of teachers first, the teachers not only willingly showed their spirit, which was based on the duty against culture-war, but also showed their self-discipline on moral and learning characters, which were identified on the basis of traditional teachers; they not only realized the autonomy in teaching different subjects, but also realized the administrative democracy by applying the good decision mechanism on college affairs. With the national crisis becoming more and more serious, teachers' anti-war consciousness became stronger and stronger. They tried to set up a cultural great wall by teaching. With this spirit, their behaviors showed the great sense of their mission and their exemplary role. They deeply realized that the realization of saving the nation by education had to depend on cultivating people by education. They very agreed on the traditional idea of teaching and actively carried it out. In order to train the excellent teachers for secondary schools, they especially emphasized on advancing and enriching the traditional idea of teaching and emphasized on their own virtue as well as on making their virtue influencing others.In teaching, the teachers directed by the comparatively lower professional principles at that time could even take advantage of opportunity. In the curriculum design, they had enough right to speak; in the curriculum standards and textbooks, they had comparatively great right of autonomy. In college management, teachers could make good use of the college's flat organization and administration, and make good use of the frankly and sincerely decision making process to negotiate with president of the college and to promote the operation of college work. In all, these reflected that the obvious management characters of the National Teacher College were by the teachers, from the teachers and center of the teachers.Because of carrying out the management idea of teachers first, the National Teacher College obtained outstanding achievements. Firstly, the number of good teachers was large. The ration between teachers and students was reasonable and every discipline had many excellent teachers who formed the excellent group. In teacher group, there were a lot of intelligent scholars, young and middle-aged staff, and young talents, which made the National Teacher College on a par with the old universities. Secondly, the teachers were responsible and diligent so that they were faithful in the discharge of teaching and devoted themselves to research. In teaching, they followed the time's requirement of training right teachers, they trained students'inner quality by cultivating their tastes, enforcing the basic subjects, enriching the professional subjects, training professional knowledge and skills, etc. In researching aspect, even in the very hard time, they did not stopping researching. They did research far away from currying favor with politics and popular ideas, far away from following the ideas of predecessors and authorities, far away from pinning their faith on the other nation's and the country's doctrines, and far away from being controlle by their own feelings, hence, what they showed was the research spirit of only truth and independence. At the same time, in the situation of nation's crisis, their research showed the strong implication. Their research provided anti-war theory and struggle strategies, or provided the methods for the war-time education, or promoted the nation to establish the theories on law, or studied the national economy in people's life, or provided various works to respond to the anti-war policy and the national reconstruction policy, etc. Thirdly, because of teachers'working hard together, the college became larger and larger, obtained excellent teaching achievements, and succeeded in accomplishing its historical mission.Learning from history is for us to walk to the ideal. The history of the National Teacher College speaks volumes for that the college should set up the idea of teacher-first, and should create conditions to carry out teacher-first management. The success of the National Teacher College tells us that the realization of teacher-first management needs the precondition of president's sagacity and sincerity, needs the base of the teachers'consciousness and ability, and needs the safeguard of mechanism. The limitations of the National Teacher College tell us that the indispensable external conditions of realizing teacher-first management are education independence and university autonomy.Summing up the National Teacher College's referential experience and thinking back to its shortcomings, we can get the conclusion that today's college should set up its teacher-first idea on the basis of searching autonomy and fulfilling the basic duties, and the supervisors in today's college should warmly practice the management idea of teachers first to benefit for people.