TEACHING METHODS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 10

TEACHING METHODS.

TO DEVELOP PERSONALITY. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. " ABOMINABLE," SAYS DUTCH VISITOR. An enthusiast in modern methods of education, Dr. Van Der Leeuw, a Dutch visitor now in Auckland, said this morn-, ing that wherever he had come into touch with youth movements throughout the world the fact he had emphasised was that it is greatly in the power of youth to determine what kind of a civilisation is to be built up in their country. "The idea among far too many young people is. that all they can do in life is to do as their fathers and mothers have done. They just drift into the conventions and customs of the preceding generation. There is no reason whatever why in two or three generations a marked change should not be brought about, if only the young people get the opportunity to develop to the very highest of the possibilities that are in them."

Asked if he did not think New Zealand bad a good educational system, the visitor said he had seen too little of it to give an authoritative opinion. Judging from what he had seen in other countries he imagined that the chief difficulty was in the choice of teachers. "Humanity as a whole is now agreed," Dr. Van Der Leeuw remarked, "that a child is not an einptv box which you can lill with miscellaneous information, but that a child is an individual with a personality to be developed. The difficulty is this: Under the old method of education anyone who wished to be a teacher could somehow manage to worry through. The new method of education goes on the principle that only a man or woman who has natural gifts for teaching shall be entrusted with the important task of developing the best that may be found in the young. It is something born in a person which cannot be put in bv others. My point is.' added the visitor, "that a prospective teacher should be confronted with children, and that ability to draw the best out of them should be the determining factor in the final selection of the teacher. If one has the true gift the necessarv knowledge may be given, but without that gift the work of one who aspires to be a teacher is futile." Dr. \ an Der Leeuw holds strong views on the question of corporal punishment in schools. "It is an abomination," he said, "and should be entirely prohibited. We in Holland abolished it a hundred years ago. If a teacher strikes a child lie is liable to be expelled. The discipline in our schools is at least no worse than that in the schools of other countries. Our method succeeds in establishing confidence between teachers and pupils." The visitor expressed pleasure with his recent visit to Waitaki High School, and especially with the training the' pupils there were receiving in international affairs. , Ihis ) lie thought, was an excellent way of preventing youn™ people from becoming insular. * °