UNIQUE SCHOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1938, Page 9

UNIQUE SCHOOL.

LESSONS BY POST.

RURAL CHILDREN TAUGHT. HOLIDAY rV AITCKI«ANT>. Twenty-four children from isolated rural areas who will next week taste the excitement of city life belong to one of the most unusual schools, in the world. Pupils of the Xow Zealand Education Department's Correspondence School, they learn their lessons by post. Then classrooms are their homes.

Through the splendid efforts of the "Sunshine" club# of the children's department of the '"Auckland Star." and the generous assistance of a number of adults, these 24 boys and girls have been selected by their headmaster, Dr. A. G. Butchers, to spend a week's holiday in the city. Months of work have gone

into the campaign which has made this holiday possible, and on Monday the children will arrive, mainly from northern districts, to begin a programme that will be full of excitement.

There would be no need for a correspondence school in a community if all the children could attend a " school. Because this was not possible, tiie Education Department in 1922 branched out in its activities to meet rural needs, adding a secondary division in 1929. Kecent figures showed that there wire 2000 Correspondence School pupils. <if whom about 900 were in the secondary division and 300 were physically disabled. The staff numbered 100. Unity and Enthusiasm. Various factors, says the principal, Dr. Butchers, have welded the pupils, scattered and isolated though they are, into a school strongly imbued with a sense of unity and enthusiasm. These factors help to train and direct the emotions and ideals of the pupils—one of the major functions, after all, of anv good school.

Dr. Butchers recognises that a child, who because o" distance or disabilitv is not able to attend school, is robbed of the valuable advantage of contact and intercourse with other children and teachers, which only attendance can provide.

"Happily, however," he says, "they enjoy some compensating advantages. It is not altogether a disadvantage to ha ve the teacher a hundred miles away, and to receive all the teacher's instruction and correction in written or typewritten form bv mail."

Instead,, of the class lessons to which most children are accustomed, Correspondence School pupils receive typewritten assignments, which are as nearly as possible perfect in their arrangement, sequence and lucidity of exposition. They are addressed to the individual, not to the class. Ko questioning arid answering can lie resorted to by either teacher or pupil. In this way it happes that the child must study and struggle with the work presented. He cannot ask for help and he soon learns to do without it. Thus he develops initiative, a power of attack and concentration, persistency of purpose and a sense of responsibility. Since he is taught individually, he cannot suffer from odious comparisons or class distinctions. Trust In Pupils. "The Correspondence School teacher cannot by spoken word, by gesture, or even by a look influence a pupil," Dr. Butchers points out. ''Punishment cannot be inflicted by post. Even the words that might have been spoken effectively cannot be written down and. dispatched, for when written they assume a different aspect. They become liable to misinterpretation, potentially terrifying in their effect in some circumstances.

"The correspondence teacher must, therefore, trust his pupils. If that fails at first, he must patiently and sympathetically trust them again. Strange as this may seem to some, this method succeeds; the children soon leara to discipline themselves."

Another advantage which the correspondence pupil enjoys is that, because he is taught individually, his education is generally unaffected by bad weather or temporary sickness. Where a child attending school might miss a day, a week or even longer, and return to school to find himself handicapped by the loss of lessons, the correspondence pupil simply takes up his work at the point where he left off.

The system is a boon- to children unable to attend school for physical reasons, too; individual courses are planned and prepared for each case, with emphasis laid on literature, or arte and crafts, or whatever the pupil's aptitudes and interests may dictate. More than that they can proceed at the pace to which they feel equal.

The methods adopted says Dr. Butchers, constitute "a unique experiment in the education of rural and disabled children."