A Vision for Instructional Supervision: Mission Impossible? by Elizabeth M. Gensante

The standard model for supervising instruction in most school districts is a deficiency model, whereby supervisors take on the role of "snoopervisor," visiting classrooms to judge what they observe.
As a beginning teacher, I grew accustomed to token visits from my principal whose standard advice was that if I kept an orderly room and maintained student behavior, all would go well for me. Never was there any dialogue about the substance of my lessons. Since he rarely visited my classroom, I assumed I was doing all right.
Toward the end of my 15 years as a teacher, circumstances changed. The new principal assigned to my building believed the time spent on instructional supervision should benefit not only me, but also my students and the principal himself. Post-observation talks with this principal were just that--talks. He encouraged conversation by asking me open-ended questions about specific aspects of my lesson--why I chose certain strategies over others, what went through my mind during the planning stage of a particular lesson, and so on.
All teachers in my school realized this principal expected us to reflect on our teaching and that we could expect him to engage us in post-observation talk that was collegial and nonjudgmental. We also realized that working with teachers on instruction was important to this principal, yet none of us ever felt threatened because we sensed his genuine interest in helping us be the best that we could be.
Do supervisors in most schools today help teachers modify their behaviors and expand their repertoire? Not likely! A survey of school districts probably would validate that most experienced teachers are observed about once a year and the inexperienced teachers are observed perhaps twice. More significantly, such a survey would show that