VISUAL EDUCATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 159, 18 April 1938, Page 3

VISUAL EDUCATION.

AN AMERICAN SYSTEM. Model steel derricks rigged to pump watery oil, mysterious maps that flashed a bluish-green light when one guessed the correct location of a city, a hotair heating, system that traced the course of air currents and a host of other mechanical contrivances intended to supplement the text book and dramatise teaching in the classroom, were displayed recently by the Board ul Education (states the “New York Times”).

About fifty principals and supervisors, under the direction ol Assistant Superintendent' Ellen A. G. Phillips, viewed these objective teaching materials at the opening of Manhattan’s first education museum at PublicSchool 46, St. Nicholas Avenue, and 156th Street. Special emphasis was placed upon techniques to vitalise classroom instruction in science, history, and geography. All of the gadgets were made by W.P.A. teachers working under the direction of Herbert S. Walsh, the Board of Education’s technical supervisor.

The museum will be operated on the principle of a circulating library, requisition pieces of apparatus they find useful. If a teacher is discussing heat transmission in her class, such appliances as the model heat indicator, the hot-water system, and the lamp resistance hoard are available. At other times the weather vane, water wheel telephone, optical box, steam engine, or working model of the cotton gin would prove helpful. A library museum of this type will be established in each borough, it was explained. During the past month centres were opened in the Bronx, Queens, and Richmond. The final one will open in Brooklyn. A teacher will be in charge in the capacity of a librarian.

Teachers and principals examined the new devices critically and voted the idea, a success. A W.P.A. representative, in explaining the function of the teaching aids, called the objective teaching materials “the greatest departure in education since the invention. of the printing press.” Two and a half years of work have gone into the project.

The oil drilling rig caught the attention of most of the visitors, including a few children who wandered in by accident, since this was a preview for teachers.

About the size of a tall man, the oil derrick is so constructed that it can be operated by pulling a series of levers In cross-section can be seen layers of earth and gravel, clay, sandstone, shale, conglomerate, gas, oil, impervious limestone, water, and igneous rock. Each layer is coloured differently and the process of digging for oil i-s made understandable even to flic children. Several pupils examining a heating outfit were tested and found wanting. “Where does the heat come from:'" one was asked by tin* supervisor m charge of the exhibit. A thoughful pause, and then, “Oh the janitor makes it down in the cellar.” The boys were then shown, through the use of the model, just how steam is made.