As director of the school, the principal is to be directly or indirectly involved in all facets of the school's operations. This includes the task of training the staff in new developments in education. That ongoing staff development is essential is disputed by few. Virtually all educators believe in the importance of remaining abreast of current trends in education and being trained in the methods brought forth and described by experts. The principal, therefore, must himself remain abreast of academic developments in journals and other publications.
Having done so, the principal must then arrange the time, the place, and the opportunity to teach and train his staff in these principles. The most common method is to pull the teachers aside for a day without the students and discuss the craft of teaching as professionals without the interruptions and distractions inherent in the actual practice of teaching. These inservices become invaluable opportunities for the staff to view their job from different perspectives, evaluate what they currently are doing, and judge for themselves the potential benefit or harm of the method proposed. There is always the possibility that the new ideas and methods will not be considered successful, but such a conclusion would be difficult to objectively arrive at unless time could be spent studying a comparison of the new with the old. In either case, the teachers will have had the opportunity to join with the administration in the decision on whether or not to administer the new method to the students in the school. Perhaps even more than the time off from the students the teachers will appreciate being consulted on how they perform their job.
Murphy used the Far West Laboratory for Educational Development to study what made an effective principal as well as what made an effective school. While the researchers were unable to accurately determine cause and effect, they were able to make some guess...