Eliminating Waste in Teaching
The pioneering work of Dr. Lillian Moller Gilbreth.
Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972). Photo circa 1930. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 90-105, Image #SIA2008-1924
Dr. Lillian Gilbreth (24 May 1878 – 2 January 1972) was one of the giants of the early 1900s Scientific Management movement. She was a person of great achievement, having created the field of industrial psychology and was one of the originators of industrial engineering. She is famous for her work in bringing the human dimension to management practice. Her pioneering work in industrial psychology paved the way for a more benevolent and humane practice of Scientific Management. Dr. Gilbreth’s innovative ideas and practices live on today in Toyota’s management system and in Lean management.
Dr. Gilbreth earned her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1915. Her doctoral dissertation, titled “Some Aspects of Eliminating Waste in Teaching,” fell into obscurity after its completion. This book publishes, for the first time, her doctoral dissertation, and includes commentary and analysis by Professor Bob Emiliani. Dr. Gilbreth’s dissertation is an important work for historical reasons as well as practical reasons. She demonstrates the broad applicability of Scientific Management to a field far removed manufacturing industries – teaching – yet very closely allied with it in terms of the need to continuously teach and train both managers and workers.
Readers will recognize her outstanding observation skills, penetrating insights, and recommendations for improvement that were the same as those found in companies that adopted Scientific Management in the early 1900s. Readers will marvel the depth of Dr. Gilbreth’s insights and her unceremonious exposing of the truth. The teaching errors that Lillian Gilbreth observed in 1915 are still with us today, which shows the devastating power of tradition and thus the continued need for improvement.
This book will be of interest to teachers at all levels, educational administrators, policy makers, politicians, government agencies, non-profit organizations that promote improvement in teaching, as well as corporate trainers and consultants. It will also appeal to those interested in Lillian Gilbreth’s wide-ranging work, Scientific Management, industrial engineering, industrial psychology, women engineers, the strong links between Dr. Gilbreth’s approach to Scientific Management and Toyota’s management system, and the history of progressive management. And don’t forget to read the books Lean Teaching: A Guide to Becoming a Better Teacher and Lean University: A Guide to Renewal and Prosperity.
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Book Details
Eliminating Waste in Teaching: Timeless Lessons for Improving Teaching and Training
by Dr. Lillian Moller Gilbreth with Dr. Bob Emiliani
Cubic, LLC South Kingstown, RI, USA
370 pages • ISBN 978-1-7320191-0-2 • November 2019
Table of Contents
By Bob Emiliani
Preface
Foreword
Introduction
Postscript
Contemporary Methods of Waste Elimination in Teaching
By Lillian Gilbreth
Preface
PART I
General Principles of Waste Elimination
Chapter I Waste Elimination and Scientific Management
Chapter II The Relation Between Education and Scientific Management
Chapter III What Scientific Management Is
Chapter IV The Practice of Scientific Management and Its Tests
Chapter V Installing and Maintaining Scientific Management
PART II
Application of Waste Elimination to Teaching
Chapter I The First Step, the Survey, Recording Present Conditions
Chapter II Waste Elimination in Handling the Material Element
Chapter III The Human Element, Eliminating Waste in Physical Motions
Chapter IV The Human Element, Eliminating Waste in Mental Motions
Chapter V The Problem of Motivation
Appendix A, B, C, D, E
About the Authors
