by David L. Bastin
What is the relationship between inspiration and educational supervision? In my opinion, the role of inspiration is creativity. Finding the medium between experimental-existential supervision and the didactic approach is essential when searching for inspiration and creativity toward educational supervision. The supervisor must find a way to educate through a mixture of understanding the supervisee’s feelings and their tasks.
Supervision is described as the empowerment of the supervised and giving them the ability ‘to practice as professionals in spite of organizational barriers.’ The strengths perspective may be one of the best ways to empower (Sanborn, 2012). If the supervisor can creatively build on the supervisee’s strengths, then perspective, on all levels, will improve. Being informed and creative may make for a well-structured interactive. Ming-sum Tsui’s book ‘Social Work Supervision’ (2005) references the responsibility of the supervisor to be ‘kind, honest, and culturally-competent.’ Tsui also reminds us of how these details lead to extended trust and respect between the supervisor and the ‘worker.’ At this point, supervision becomes more than just a task oriented assignment.
The parallel process, as described by numerous authors including Kadushin & Harkness (2002), has a significant role in educational supervision. This process is represented by the ‘tendency for patterns to repeat at different levels of the system’ (Kadushin & Harkness, 2002). This all revolves around the fact the supervisor’s interaction with the client and worker’s interaction with the client all affect each other. In theory, this positioning can be somewhat manipulated by the supervisor if they are aware of the feelings or thoughts between the worker and the client. In my opinion, differentiation between parallel process and other situations that seem similar but are not parallel takes a great deal of creativity and inspiration.
Acknowledging or being open to aesthetics (nature, creation, perceived beauty) and effective influence, predicted creativity of an idea. Temperament balanced the relationship between creativity and inspiration. Inspiration predicted efficiency and productivity (Thrash, Maruskin, Cassidy, Fryer, Ryan, 2010). Developmental, experimental, and constructivist epistemology may be key forces when developing methods for teaching counseling educators (Chiari, 2011). And, recognizing the resistance, teacher isolation, and the ‘role of leadership in developing relationships’ are also important to inspiration and challenges in ‘guiding the professional learning community’ (Browne, 2010). Therefore, in order to, combine all these thoughts, theories, philosophies, and approaches, educational supervision takes a great deal of creativity to find inspiration for the supervisor, the supervisee, and the client, so the feelings and the tasks, at-hand, evolve.
[Contributed by David L. Bastin (2012) [David Lee Bastin studies social work as a graduate student at Tennessee State University. David’s interest in social work stems from his work as a therapist for the Tennessee state mental institution. David plans to continue working with those suffering from serious mental conditions such as schizophrenia and psychotic disorders. Follow David on Twitter @DAVIDBASTIN2]
References
Browne, Evelyn Gallagher (2010). Mentoring & tutoring: Partnership in learning. Vol 18(3). Pp. 321-325.
Chiari, Gabriele (2011). Journal of constructivist psychology. Vol 24(4). Pp. 351-354.
Kadushin & Harkness (2002). Supervision in social work: 4th edition. Columbia University Press.
Sanborn, John; (2012). ‘ Social work supervision.’ Middle Tennessee State University.
Thrash, Todd M.; Maruskin, Laura A.; Cassidy, Scott E.; Fryer, James W.; Ryan, Richard M. (2010). Journal of personality and social psychology. Vol 98(3). Pp. 469-487.
Tsui, Ming-sum (2005). Social work supervision: Contexts and concepts. Thousand Oaks, London; New Delhi, Sage.
