The Newton High School system of lectures and seminars has its parallel at the grade school level in the "Team-School in Lexington. This endeavor represents the third SUPRAD objective, finding means of attracting and holding highly qualified persons in both teaching and administrative positions.
The SUPRAD investigators and Lexington teachers believe that many learning activities on the grade school level, such as group singing and listening to a report or program, are such that little, if any, harm would be done if they were conducted en masse. Making class size flexible should also render much easier the institution of homogeneous and heterogenous grouping and individual instruction in the elementary grades.
Differentiation Sought
But there is another very important aspect of this flexibility: it allows for a certain amount of stratification in the teaching profession. The educators connected with the Team-Teaching Project feel that some "differentiation of prestige and function among the teachers" might increase initiative, and thus the efficiency of instruction, while at the same time dignifying the role of the superior teacher.
At the top of this stratification is the "team leader," a teacher of unusual talent, ordinarily possessing ten or more years of experience and a Masters Degree or the equivalent. His duties include the direct responsibility for curriculum planning and development and the supervision of inexperienced teachers and those of modest ability.
The "senior teacher" is an experienced, mature person with above average talent, a prestigeful position comparable with that now held by the well regarded career teacher.
Under the personnel ranking system "teachers" are classified as inexperienced or experienced. The former may have one potential to move upward in the pedagocial hierarchy the latter are usually considered as satisfactory filling their present hole to the best of their "modest, but adequate ability."
The other classification, in the order named, are part-time teacher, professional intern (a person currently being trained for teaching), resource person (adults whose careers are in fields other than teaching, but whose special talents lie in fields where the regular school staff has insufficient strength), and clerical aide (adults with no professional preparation who are able, with a minimum of training to assist in various routine and nontechnical aspects of the team's daily work).
Theory and Practice Joined
On the whole the SUPRAD project is an attempt to bridge the gap which so many educators feel exists today between theoretical research on education in the graduate schools of the nation's universities and practical application of these theories in the elementary and high schools. The SUPRAD organization is performing a new and healthy role in linking the theories of educators to the practice of teaching