Meanings of Management

The term ‘management’ encompasses an array of different functions undertaken to accomplish a task successfully. In the simplest of terms, management is all about ‘getting things done’. However, it is the way and the process of how one achieves ones target or goals and it is in this respect that management is considered an art and a science as well.

The term management may be recently defined, but it existed at a time when men started learning the art of organizing, strategizing (during wars) and/or simply planning. At the core of it, management was quintessentially considered as an art of ‘managing men’ and hence the term “manage-men-T.”

Management in all business and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.

Rousseau (1972) pointed out “A real knowledge of things may be a good thing in itself, but the knowledge of men and their opinions is better, for in human society.”

Peter Drucker(1993) defined management as “Supplying knowledge to find out how existing knowledge can best be applied to produce results is, in effect, what we mean by management. But knowledge is now also being applied systematically and purposefully to determine what new knowledge is needed, whether it is feasible, and what has to be done to make knowledge effective. It is being applied, in other words, to systematic innovation.”

Management today combines creative, business, organizational, analytical and other skills to produce effective goal-oriented results! Some of the key functions in management includes learning to delegate, planning and organizing, communicating clearly, controlling situations, motivating employees, adapting to change, constantly innovating and thinking of new ideas, building a good team and delivering results which are not just figure -bound but results that also focus on overall growth and development.

Management focuses on the entire organization from both a short and a long-term perspective. Management is the managerial process of forming a strategic vision, setting objectives, crafting a strategy and then implementing and executing the strategy.

Approaches

In general terms, there are two approaches to management:

-The Industrial Organization Approach: This approach is based on economic theory which deals with issues like competitive rivalry, resource allocation, economies of scale. This approach to management assumes rationality, self interested behavior, profit maximization.

- The Sociological Approach: This approach deals primarily with human interactions. It assumes rationality, satisfying behavior, profit sub-optimality.

Management theories can also be divided into two sets. One is the set that concentrates mainly on efficiency and another is the set that concentrates mainly on effectiveness. Efficiency is about doing things the right way. It involves eliminating waste and optimizing processes. Effectiveness is about doing the right things.

Basic functions

Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing, staffing, leading/directing, and controlling/ monitoring, Motivation .i.e

• Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next 5 years, etc.) and generating plans for action.
• Organizing: (Implementation) making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans.
• Staffing: Job analyzing, recruitment, and hiring individuals for appropriate jobs.
• Leading/Directing: Determining what needs to be done in a situation and getting people to do it.
• Controlling/Monitoring: Checking progress against plans.
• Motivation: Motivation is also a kind of basic function of management, because without motivation, employees cannot work effectively. If motivation doesn't take place in an organization, then employees may not contribute to the other functions (which are usually set by top level management).

Hierarchy of Management

The management of a large organization may have about five levels:

1. Senior management (or "top management" or "upper management")
2. Middle management
3. Low-level management, such as supervisors or team-leaders
4. Foreman
5. Rank and File

Top-level management

• Require an extensive knowledge of management roles and skills.
• They have to be very aware of external factors such as markets.
• Their decisions are generally of a long-term nature
• Their decisions are made using analytic, directive, conceptual and/or behavioral/participative processes
• They are responsible for strategic decisions.
• They have to chalk out the plan and see that plan may be effective in the future.
• They are executive in nature.

Middle management

• Mid-level managers have a specialized understanding of certain managerial tasks.
• They are responsible for carrying out the decisions made by top-level management.
• finance, marketing etc comes under middle level management

Lower management

• This level of management ensures that the decisions and plans taken by the other two are carried out.
• Lower-level managers' decisions are generally short-term ones.

Foreman / lead hand

• They are people who have direct supervision over the working force in office factory, sales field or other workgroup or areas of activity.

Rank and File

• The responsibilities of the persons belonging to this group are even more restricted and more specific than those of the foreman.

 

Principles of School Management

 

1.      The policies of the school have been developed according to educational principles, government policies and the goals of elementary school education.

2.      Reinforce administrative organization, maintain job responsibilities and boost work efficiency.

3.      Follow a democratic approach, make personnel, funds, opinions, rewards and punishment public in an attempt to lead the school toward united and harmonious direction.

4.      Strengthen personnel management, increase employees’ motivation. Look, listen and understand more. Promote a focus on mobile management.

5.      Emphasize delicate campus planning, improve working environment, and inspire employees’ professional spirit.

6.      Encourage in-service teacher education to improve teaching methods and counseling skills in order to more effectively implement educational functions.

7.      To respect and serve rather than manage

8.      Focus on teachers’ sense of honor and responsibility

9.      Focus on research, experimentation, innovation and the teaching profession. Invigorate teachers’ spirit and stimulate educational renovation.

10.  Enhance teaching equipment and make good use of social resources in order to create modern well-developed citizens.

11.  Incorporate the five main themes of education, and teach students in accordance with their aptitudes to maximize their talents.

12.  Focus on the planning and delivery of special education services.

13.  Strengthen life education, moral education, and traffic safety education in order to develop a harmonious atmosphere.

14.  Develop good relationships with communities, make use of social resources, and continue school development in order to make the school a center of community development.  

Principles of Management

What is principle? It is a generation that is widely accepted as true system. Principles always are to be considered helpful for several reasons.

First: They help to make more accurate decision, applying in any situation and eliminating guesswork.

Second: it saves time. Principles provide guidelines for actions.

Third: principles enable the people to pass information from one generation to another.

There are few Principles which are to be adapted in management.

1. Planning Principles

a)      Principle of the Primary Objectives

b)      Principle of adequate alternative

c)      Principle of contingencies

2. Organizing Principles

a)      Unity of Command principle

b)      Adequacy of authority principle

c)      Scalar (chain-of-command) principle

3. Staffing Principles

a)      Principle of developing a successor

b)      Principle of manager evaluation

c)      Principle of management development

4. Directing Principles

a)      Principle of harmony of objective

b)      Principle of manager’s example

c)      Principle of motivation

5. Controlling Principles

a)      Principle of standards

b)      Principle of measurement of performance against standards

c)      Principle of corrective action

 

 Definition and Purpose of School Discipline

School discipline is the system of rules, punishments and behavioral strategies appropriate to the regulation of children and the maintenance of order in schools. Its aim is to create a safe and conducive learning environment in the classroom.

School discipline has two main goals: (1) ensure the safety of staff and students, and (2) create an environment conducive to learning. Serious student misconduct involving violent or criminal behavior defeats these goals and often makes headlines in the process. However, the commonest discipline problems involve noncriminal student behavior (Moles 1989).

It is important to keep the ultimate goal in mind while working to improve school discipline. As education researcher Daniel Duke (1989) points out, "the goal of good behavior is necessary, but not sufficient to ensure academic growth." Effective school discipline strategies seek to encourage responsible behavior and to provide all students with a satisfying school experience as well as to discourage misconduct.

The word “discipline’ is derived from the Latin root “disciples” meaning a pupil or disciple. Naturally, the problem of discipline was taken to consist in bringing the conduct of the pupils into conformity with ideas and standards of the master. The pupil had to develop the virtue of docility and plasticity so that the teacher might impress his personality on them and mould them in his own image. This was the conception of the relationship between pupil and teacher everywhere. Its modern concept is very broad and inclusive one. It does not recognize difference between mental and moral behavior for the purpose of control, nor, in fact for any other purpose.

In fact, the individual mind is conceived of “as a function of social life-as not capable of operating by itself but as requiring continual stimulus from social agencies and finding its nutrition in social purpose”.

Modern view of discipline is to bring the same unity in the educative process and educative material as we find in real life. School must be a social organism in which social situations should be provided to stimulate and direct the impulses of the pupils in the pursuit of the common purposes through cooperative or shared activity. To obtain good result is also another view. Cooperation should improve the intellectual, moral, social and physical activities of the students in school environment and these must be directed towards the realization of the certain goals.

Purpose of the discipline is also develop the attitudes, habits, ideas, and code of conduct through the medium of the social life of the school which should be organized on a cooperative basis and inspired by higher ethical teaching of religion.

 

The purpose of discipline is to help the individual to acquire knowledge, habits, interests and ideals which conduce to the well being of himself, his fellows and society as a whole. It gives realization to the school that it must be reconstructed on the lines of the development and conscious pursuit of common ends in a cooperative spirit, each member contributing to the common good in accordance with special gifts. Life in the school thus organized becomes similar to the, and continuous with, life in democratic society, and discipline becomes co-extensive with the whole of school life.

Main points

·         Discipline gives children a feeling of security by telling them what they may and may not do.

·         It helps children to avoid from frequent feelings of guilt and shame for misbehavior-feelings that inevitably lead to unhappiness and poor adjustment.

·         Discipline enables children to live according to standards approved by the social group and thus to win social approval.

·         Through discipline, children learn to behave in a way that leads to praise that, they interpret as indications of love and acceptance which is essential to successful adjustment and happiness.

·         Discipline serves as an ego-bolstering motivation, which encourages children to accomplish what is required of them.

·         Discipline helps children to develop a conscious the “internalized voice” that guides them in making their own decisions and controlling their own behavior.

 

 Modern Examples of School Discipline

A modern example of school discipline in North America and Western Europe relies upon the idea of an assertive teacher who is prepared to impose their will upon a class. Positive reinforcement is balanced with immediate and fair punishment for misbehavior and firm, clear boundaries define what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Teachers are expected to respect their students, and sarcasm and attempts to humiliate pupils are seen as falling outside of what constitutes reasonable discipline.

Whilst this is the consensus viewpoint amongst the majority of academics, some teachers and parents advocate a more assertive and confrontational style of discipline. Such individuals claim that many problems with modern schooling stem from the weakness in school discipline and if teachers exercised firm control over the classroom they would be able to teach more efficiently. This viewpoint is supported by the educational attainment of countries -- in East Asia for instance -- that combine strict discipline with high standards of education.

It's not clear, however that this stereotypical view reflects the reality of East Asian classrooms or that the educational goals in these countries are commensurable with those in Western countries. In Japan, for example, although average attainment on standardized tests may exceed those in Western countries, classroom discipline and behavior is highly problematic. Although, officially, schools have extremely rigid codes of behavior, in practice many teachers find the students unmanageable and do not enforce discipline at all, while others impose brutal standards of discipline, backed up with beatings and whippings.

Remembering that typical class sizes are 40 to 50 students, maintaining classroom order under these conditions can take so much effort that there is simply no time for learning, so it is common for teachers to simply ignore disruptive students and concentrate their attention on motivated students. The result of this is that motivated students, who must pass extremely difficult university entrance exams, receive disproportionate resources, while the rest of the students are allowed, perhaps expected to, fail. Given that perceptions of school quality are heavily weighted towards the proportion of students passing university entrance exams, this approach diverts resources to where they are most efficient from the perspective of administrators.

The problem, however, is that many students graduate high-school with very unrealistic expectations and little in the way of useful skills, leaving it up to employers or vocational colleges to teach the basic social expectations needed for employment or higher education. Frequent complaints of teachers at the university and college level are that students lack the concept of punctuality, consider that attendance to class is sufficient for a passing grade so use class time to catch up on sleep or email, and lack the self-discipline and motivation needed for effective study. Students frequently refuse to complete homework or class work, or even bring books and paper to class, on the assumption that high-school standards of behavior will be accepted and that an automatic pass grade will be awarded provided they do not actively disrupt classes. University administrators frequently pressure teachers to issue passing grades despite poor achievement due to constraints imposed by the Ministry of Education in relation to funding.

 Factors affecting School Discipline

What School Characteristics Are Associated with Discipline Problems?

When Johns Hopkins University researchers Gary D. Gottfredson and Denise C. Gottfredson analyzed data from over 600 of the nation's secondary schools, they found that the following school characteristics were associated with discipline problems: Rules were unclear or perceived as unfairly or inconsistently enforced; students did not believe in the rules; teachers and administrators did not know what the rules were or disagreed on the proper responses to student misconduct; teacher-administration cooperation was poor or the administration inactive; teachers tended to have punitive attitudes; misconduct was ignored; and schools were large or lacked adequate resources for teaching (cited in Gottfredson 1989).

After reviewing dozens of studies on student behavior, Duke agreed with many of the Gottfredsons' conclusions. Orderly schools, he noted, usually balance clearly established and communicated rules with a climate of concern for students as individuals, and small alternative schools often maintain order successfully with fewer formal rules and a more flexible approach to infractions than large schools typically have.

How Can Schools Decrease Disruptive Behavior?

Working to change the above-mentioned characteristics may decrease disruptive behavior. First, rules and the consequences of breaking them should be clearly specified and communicated to staff, students, and parents by such means as newsletters, student assemblies, and handbooks. Meyers and Pawlas (1989) recommend periodically restating the rules, especially after students return from summer or winter vacation.

Once rules have been communicated, fair and consistent enforcement helps maintain students' respect for the school's discipline system. Consistency will be greater when fewer individuals are responsible for enforcement. Providing a hearing process for students to present their side of the story and establishing an appeal process will also increase students' and parents' perceptions of fairness.

The Gottfredsons suggest creating smaller schools or dividing large schools into several schools-within-schools (cited in Duke). This has been done in several Portland, Oregon, middle schools that have large numbers of at-risk students. For example, as Director of Instruction Leigh Wilcox explained, Lane Middle School has been divided into three minischools, each with a complete age range of students taught by a team of teachers (telephone interview, July 10, 1992).

Discipline policies should distinguish between categories of offenses. Minor infractions may be treated flexibly, depending on the circumstances, while nonnegotiable consequences are set for serious offenses. Actual criminal offenses may be reported to the police as part of a cooperative anticrime effort (Gaustad 1991).

 Lack of Leadership in Teacher

1.      Teachers have no respect as they had in the past.

2.      Students do not show respect the teachers

3.      Teachers get involved in the cesspool of politics and self-interest

4.       Teachers loose their ideals and do not pay their intentions for the development of the students

5.      Teachers usually excite the students and use them as tools of private tuitions.

6.      Miserable economic condition is also one of the main reason for lack of leadership

7.      They are incapable of giving the guidance to the students

The Current Education System

1.      Current education system is always being criticized

2.      Students came to know that education given to them is not good

3.      Students have no regard for education

4.      Students just consider the education for the sake of their earning

5.      In present, primary aim of educational system is to get good position in the annual examination

6.      Students use their unfair means for achieving their objectives 

Lack of Sustaining Ideal in the Students

1.      Society has pitiable condition now a days

2.      Social changes are going to be changed

3.      Moral values have shaken our society

4.      Individual have no security of his life

5.      Lack of healthy ideals among the students

 Economic Difficulties

1.      Our economic condition has its deplorable degree

2.      Increased population created many national problems

3.       Less resources

Lack of Communication

1.      Between staff

2.      Between students

3.      Between parents

Disruptive behavior of the teacher

1.      No interest toward the students

2.      No new methodologies

3.      No interest in the curriculum

4.      No interest in the development of the students’ personalities