When I first arrived in Singapore, from the external environment, I think this country has its own uniqueness in many aspects: humid climate, green lawn, high-rise buildings and dense flat land; Orderly, convenient and comfortable subways and buses; Expressway's transportation system, criss-crossing, extending in all directions and well-equipped, even the sewers, drainage ditches and group houses (low-rent houses built by the government) on both sides of the road are designed reasonably and orderly; There are supermarkets, banks, bazaars and restaurants (restaurants) in the community, with complete goods, elegant and clean environment and relatively dense or concentrated population.
From the internal environment, what impressed me deeply was the working procedures and management system here. Although Singapore is small, its geographical position and resource advantages are not great, the social progress brought about by the rapid economic development has laid a stable material foundation for the promotion of education. Highly developed manufacturing, port trade, commerce, tourism and innovative education have become the driving forces for the progress and development of this country. We can see the potential and advantages of this country from different fields or industries. Well-trained national managers, dedicated industry personnel and school staff all show a country's mental outlook and potential social forces.
Singapore is a well-managed country. After going deep into it, you can taste, experience and feel it slowly, just like tasting a cup of coffee with strong aroma, which makes people memorable. If we explore it carefully, you will find its real charm-Singapore's education and educational innovation. The development of Singapore's economy promotes the overall development of education, which in turn provides high-quality human capital for economic development. The two complement each other. Together, they have promoted the stability, prosperity, progress and development of Singapore today and played a positive role in achieving a high level of material and spiritual civilization.
First, the understanding and understanding of school quality management
In modern society, science, technology and management are called the three pillars of modern social civilization. What is management? From a management point of view, all organizations with the same activities need to be managed. Management is an activity that managers lead and organize people to complete certain tasks and achieve the same goals. Some scholars believe that management is the sum of efficiency, speed and quality. The so-called school quality management is to improve the quality of national education through advanced management strategies and systems.
Education is not only the top priority of the development of a country and a nation, but also the basic project of inheriting human civilization and building a harmonious society. It can be said that all human social activities are closely related to educational activities directly and indirectly, which requires that educational activities must improve their management level and enhance their management ability. The school is not only a relatively independent institution, but also inseparable from all aspects of society, especially the economic development and social demand for talents, which poses certain challenges to the management of the school. As a public welfare institution, the publicity of its resources and sociality of its functions determine that its survival and development cannot be separated from the social system and must be supervised and managed by the society.
High-quality management in schools is an organizational activity for school administrators to lead and guide teachers and students through certain rules and systems, make full use of resources and conditions inside and outside schools, and effectively achieve school work goals. Quality management includes organizational structure, organizational development plan (mission, vision, core values, strategy), leadership and management, employees, team building and employee development policies. Its purpose requires managers to fully consider the basic principles of campus culture construction in the management process, taking students as the center and teachers as the center; Maximize the maximum benefits of manpower, material resources and financial resources. Only in this way can education exert its greatest social benefits and meet people's urgent needs for quality education to the greatest extent.
As the main leader of the school, the principal is the nerve center of the school. The key to running a school well lies in the principal, especially in today's primary and secondary schools. After implementing the principal responsibility system, the principal plays a more prominent role in a school. Bin Liu, the former deputy director of the State Education Commission and governor, pointed out in his inscription to the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the training center for middle school principals of the Ministry of Education 1995: "We should know, understand and remember this sentence: a good principal is a good school". This sentence profoundly expounds the dialectical relationship between the principal and the school, that is, the basic quality of a principal determines the quality of running a school.
Ilan K. McEwan, an American school management consultant, believes that a high-performance principal should be good at communication. He is an educator, reformer, vision planner, cultural constructor and promoter of school development. He is an activist, a creator of educational achievements, a shaper of personality and a contributor. He thinks these are ten qualities that an excellent headmaster should possess. Gerald C. Urban and Larry W. Hughes, the authors of On Principals: Innovative Leadership in Effective Schools, put forward six standards for school administrators, which clearly defined the knowledge, attitude and behavior that principals should possess.
① By proposing, expressing, implementing and maintaining the learning vision shared and supported by the whole school group, we will always promote all students to be successful educational leaders.
② Promote, cultivate and maintain school culture and educational programs that are helpful to students' learning and teachers' professional development, so as to promote all students to become successful educational leaders.
(3) Ensure a safe, efficient and effective learning environment through effective management of school organization, operation and resources, so as to promote all students to become successful educational leaders.
Through cooperation with family and community members, we can effectively respond to the diverse interests and needs of the community, mobilize community resources, and promote all students to become successful educational leaders.
⑤ Promote all students to become successful educational leaders through honest and fair behaviors and moral ways.
⑥ Cultivate leaders who can help all students succeed by understanding, feeding back and influencing the political, social, economic, legal and cultural environment.
China is a country with a large population and education. Incomplete statistics show that the number of people engaged in education management in China accounts for a considerable proportion, and the total number of primary and secondary school principals has exceeded one million. Since the beginning of the new century, under the background of the professionalization of principals, the society and the public have higher and higher requirements for the quality of principals. The headmaster is not only facing great pressure, but also facing severe challenges. Therefore, improving the quality of educational administrators, improving the quality of school management and promoting the all-round development of students are unavoidable and must be confronted by every principal engaged in school education management.
With the development of China's economy and education, although the school management team has been continuously strengthened, the quality and knowledge of school management cadres have been greatly improved or improved, but there are also some pessimistic realities, that is, the knowledge of school management can not meet the needs of management practice and the development of management knowledge itself, and narrow management knowledge, unbalanced management structure, low management quality and low management efficiency are common problems. It has become an important and realistic problem for school management to emphasize the high-quality management of schools and gradually improve the quality of school education.
Second, the understanding and thinking of school quality management in Singapore
Singapore is a small, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious country in the East. Its political and harmonious social environment, high national quality and the most competitive country in the world make it an oriental country that has attracted worldwide attention. In recent years, while developing the economy, the Singapore government has been carrying out outstanding education reform, and the ultimate goal of this reform is to provide advanced and multidisciplinary international education for students, emphasize learning creativity, give full play to their greatest potential, and cultivate high-quality citizens with a strong sense of responsibility for their families, society and country.
First, clear development goals.
In the 2 1 century, education in different countries is facing new challenges. For a school, the biggest challenge is probably development. As far as principals are concerned, personal development and organizational development are both part of this challenge. They are not mutually exclusive, but interact with each other and have an important impact on each other's change and development. In essence, in actual management, the headmaster should strive to be a cultivator, challenger, builder and catalyst of this development and change. For an organization, there is no motivation comparable to an attractive, valuable, achievable and widely shared vision of the future, thus inspiring people's outstanding performance and long-term success.
The goal is the beacon and signpost of success, and a far-sighted principal will be concerned by the teaching staff because he pays attention to the goals of the school. American scholar Peter Shengji has clearly put forward five disciplines for establishing a learning organization, namely, "systematic thinking, self-transcendence, mental model, * * harmony with the original scene, and team learning". These five disciplines actually provide an expected goal and direction for the overall development of an organization and an individual. The Ministry of Education of Singapore regards "shaping the future of the country" as the mission of national education development, and "thinking school, learning country" as the vision of national education development. Under this framework, the national development goals and school development goals are integrated, which promotes the consistency of individual and organizational development goals and forms the will of the country.
In Singapore, many schools attach great importance to organizational development plans. They regard mission as the foundation of the school's survival and development, vision as the direction of the school's future development, values as the guidelines for guiding work or action, and realize the school's sustainable development through concrete strategy implementation. The development mission of Dashan Middle School in Singapore is to "enhance students' confidence in life, tap students' potential, cultivate students' skills and make students become useful citizens in society". The mission of Nanyang Technological University is to "inherit and carry forward the traditional culture, provide students with a comprehensive education, fully tap the potential of students, and promote the all-round development of faculty and colleges. "The aim of the two schools is to combine the school with the development of modern society from the reality of the school, which embodies the educational philosophy of different schools and defines the overall goal of school development.
Second, improve school management.
The goal of improving school management is to improve the quality of school management. Establishing the quality view of school management is a systematic and rational understanding of school management achievements on the basis of practice. If the school organization system wants to improve the quality of school management, it must change the inherent way of looking at the school, challenge some beliefs that school management has relied on for a long time, reconstruct the concept of school management quality, and think and improve from the aspects of school management concept, system and technology.
President Feng Huanhao of Nanyang Public College in Singapore put forward two important aspects about the daily management of school leaders, namely, people and things. Person refers to: Minister of Education, faculty, parents, board of directors, advisory committees, alumni associations and societies; Things refer to: policies, systems, administration, finance (fund-raising), teaching, discipline, environmental assessment, safe communication and resources.
In the school environment, the principal plays a dual role of leadership and management. In the school environment, the scale and complexity of schools vary greatly, and the roles of principals in different schools are completely different, just like President Feng Huanhao's two schools at different levels, Dashan Middle School in Singapore and Nanyang Public School, which are mainly caused by the different expectations of different school organizations and groups. On the other hand, regardless of the size of the school and the number of students, the principal's administrative functions are basically the same.
Gerald C. Urban and Larry W. Hughes, American scholars, wrote the book "Principles: Innovative Leadership in Effective Schools", which divided the position of principals into five functions (curriculum development, teaching improvement, student service, resource acquisition and so on). It can be seen that if we distinguish these five functions from the two latitudes of leadership and management, then leadership means that the principal creates a school atmosphere characterized by students' efficient study, faculty's efficient work and innovative spirit. As for good management, it is to make full use of various skills, provide an orderly and effective school environment, and create various conditions so that all aspects of school organization can be clearly implemented.
Third, excellent team building.
The development of the school is inseparable from a team of teachers with high ideological quality, profound professional ability and dedication. As a manager, one of the most important things to do is to strive to establish an efficient and reasonable employment mechanism. In Singapore's education management, "employee and team building and employee development strategy" are regarded as two important strategies of quality management, and five dimensions of organizational construction are put forward, namely "material environment, knowledge, emotion, self-will and spirit".
The theory of "barrel law principle" in management science tells us that the improvement of school education and teaching quality can not be achieved by one person, but by team efforts. Building an efficient team depends on system, management, and the headmaster's personality charm and love.
Kodak believes that the success or failure of an enterprise has a great relationship with whether it can effectively mobilize the masses and give full play to their strength. Panasonic Company gives full play to the concept of all-staff management and collective wisdom management, so that employees can regard the factory as their home. Today's school management should let our managers try their best to create such an atmosphere or environment, fully motivate and mobilize the enthusiasm of the teaching staff, so that they can organically integrate individuals and groups, thus forming an efficient team spirit.
American scholar Cardero put forward: "An organization that produces learning can grow and develop in countless ways. Most institutions are mechanically copying other people's models, not being creative. " Looking at Singapore's education model, we find that they are constantly innovating, perfecting and developing themselves on the basis of absorbing the outstanding achievements of education in the East and the West.
Singapore Nanhua Middle School regards improving teachers' potential as an excellent strategy to unite team spirit. The school has formulated a "teacher training and development plan" to help teachers master the skills and knowledge needed to complete their tasks. The Chinese teaching center of public Peiqun school in South District not only provides a platform for Chinese teachers to share teaching experience and creative teaching methods, but also improves the teaching level of Chinese teachers through their participation and interaction.
Fourth, a strong academic atmosphere.
American scholars Si Tong Sliver and Hansen said, "Purpose, strategy, students and goals all have their own styles, and each style means a different relationship model among teachers, students and courses." Teaching is the lifeline of the school, and the essence of education lies in meeting students' needs for education, society, emotion, body and morality to the maximum extent through teaching activities. In short, the central mission of the school is to make all students have the right to receive quality education and enjoy the happiness, happiness and satisfaction brought by quality education services, and our realistic educational task is to help the educated grow up and get happiness.
How to make students get this kind of happiness depends on how to organize students effectively, what kind of teaching process to implement, how to adapt these processes to students' individual differences, and how to improve these processes effectively in the implementation process, so as to promote students' all-round development in morality, intelligence and physique, cultivate students' innovative spirit and practical ability, and make them become good citizens with ideals, morality, culture and discipline.
The creation of a strong academic atmosphere should be reflected in two aspects, namely, the academic atmosphere of teachers and the academic atmosphere of students. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong pointed out in a speech, "Education is not only to enable people to master the skills of making a living, but also to create opportunities for the next generation to display their talents and realize their ambitions. Our goal is not only to impart rich knowledge, but more importantly, to ignite the flame of knowledge in the hearts of the next generation. "
Teachers in Singapore play a key role in the field of education. In the schools I visited, such as Xinmin Middle School, Nanhua Middle School, Huaqiao Middle School, Jurong College, Nanyang Primary School, Peiqun Primary School and Nanhua Primary School, I deeply realized that in the professional development of teachers, teachers' abilities such as planning ability, curriculum implementation, cooperative learning, academic motivation and evaluation feedback are the main contents of teachers' professional development. Encourage teachers to bring innovative and practical teaching methods into the classroom and provide them with more professional training.
Diversified courses, such as supplementary activities, civic and moral education, psychological and vocational guidance, community service plan, national education, physical education and special assignments, enable students to get the maximum benefit from education. These courses enable them to study according to their own interests, thus overcoming the wrong tendency of understanding all-round development as average development and ignoring students' personality and specialty development, fully embodying students' autonomous learning and promoting students' self-improvement.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) Good campus culture
Campus culture is the general name of school material wealth and spiritual wealth. It includes material culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture composed of after-school culture, traditional culture and interpersonal communication. Material culture is the surface structure of campus culture, institutional culture is the middle structure, and spiritual culture is the deep structure. The ultimate goal of campus culture construction is to create a cultural atmosphere that cultivates students' sentiment, shapes students' healthy personality and comprehensively improves students' quality. Campus cultural environment can naturally edify, hint and infect students, which plays an important role in shaping their beautiful hearts and cultivating their noble sentiments. Just as teachers create classroom atmosphere, the construction of school culture always affects the construction of classroom culture for every teacher. Education itself is a kind of culture, and the reason why campus culture can play an inestimable role in the development of the school is because it is a school consciousness and spirit deeply rooted in the hearts of school teachers and students. It affects the value consciousness, ideals and beliefs and codes of conduct of school groups all the time, and plays a role in moistening things.
In primary and secondary schools in Singapore, principals shoulder the burden and responsibility of cultivating a positive campus culture. In many schools I visited, they all take reflecting the values of their own schools as the criteria for their daily decisions and actions, and they also reflect these values in the construction of campus culture, endowing the campus environment with contemporary social civilization and educational awareness, and creating a rich cultural atmosphere. In schools at different levels in Singapore, the principal's task is not only to respect and use every teacher's knowledge, skills and professionalism, but also to create a good campus cultural atmosphere through various ways and means, constantly stimulate teachers' potential and use their talents to better serve students.
Walking into Nanhua Middle School, Nanhua Primary School and Peiqun Primary School in Singapore, we feel that each school contains rich traditional culture, the school motto of "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, courtesy, righteousness, honesty and shame" and the campus cultural corridor rich in oriental culture; The elegant campus and the famous sentences such as "dripping water wears away the stone", "perseverance", "doing good deeds every day", "being polite", "applying what you have learned", "thinking about the source of drinking water" and "respecting the elderly" on the campus cultural stone make us deeply feel that campus culture not only has great moral education function, but also has a positive role in shaping students' good feelings. Creating homes, academies, amusement parks and gardens for students' life growth has become a way for many schools to develop their characteristics.
Concluding remarks
When I walked into every school in Singapore, it not only gave me a lot of experience and insights, but also inspired me to think a lot about education and education management. I think: high-quality school management must establish clear quality management objectives and cast excellent teachers. Quality is the lifeline of the school. School administrators must give priority to the internal development needs of teachers and students from the strategic height of the future development of the school, spend more time communicating with students, teachers, parents and communities, and strive to create a new "quality culture" in combination with the actual situation of the school. This quality culture is: "satisfied customers, strong leadership, systematic thinking, strategic planning, continuous learning, and continuous improvement of the school." Only under the influence of this quality culture can students exert their greatest learning potential and lay a foundation for future development.
The realization of the goal of quality education in schools depends on the interaction between teachers and students in the school teaching system. Teachers are in a central position in the operation of the school system and play a role in connecting the school administrative guidance with the students' behavior results. The quality objectives of a school should include the following two aspects:
First, students as individuals and their development. From the cognitive point of view, students' age characteristics and level sources reflect their differences. Therefore, as educational administrators and teachers, in practical work, we should not only respect the common differences among students, but also educate students with a responsible attitude. No matter what level of students, we should try our best to teach well, and this good is to let students develop and improve on the original basis. Judging from the educational mission, vision and values of different schools in Singapore, it fully embodies this point by taking students as the foundation, developing students' potential and promoting their all-round development.
The second is the development of teachers and teachers as educational individuals. Teachers are the most active and important factor in school resources, and the improvement of school teaching quality depends on teachers' continuous improvement of classroom teaching and student management through their own professional development. The development of the school itself depends on the maximization of teachers' teaching ability, so as to satisfy students' good education and promote the development of the school. From the point of view of school management, every principal expects that any individual teacher standing on the podium should strive to be the representative of the level of teachers in this discipline, that is, individual labor must reflect collective wisdom. Therefore, it is the only way to promote the connotation development of a school by strengthening the academic consciousness and service consciousness of the school and casting a team of high-quality teachers.
Educator Jaspers mentioned such a passage in the book What is Education: "What is education? Education is a cloud pushing another cloud, a tree shaking another tree, and a soul shaking another soul. " The great Italian artist Michelangelo also said: "In every boulder, there is a beautiful sculpture. All we do is remove the extra stones that cover it. " . /kloc-After 0/00 years, it won't matter what car I drive, what house I live in or how much money I have in the bank. However, the world may become beautiful, because I used to be very important to a child's life. "Quality education is to warm children's lives with love, help students create a happy life, realize the value of life and enjoy the happiness of life! Teachers are the soul of implementing quality education.