RURAL BIAS IN SCHOOLS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20086, 15 November 1930, Page 10

RURAL BIAS IN SCHOOLS.

WILL CULTURAL STANDARDS SUFFER? (SPlCli-LLI -WBITTia TOn THH PMSS.) [By J. E. Strachan, M.A., B.Sc.] Educational circles in New Zealand are feeling that the wind lias set in from the countryside. Will it prove to be a genial, health-giving, and invigorating breeze froui the open spaces, or a withering blast before which the fair flowers of scholarship and culture will shrivel and die! The time has come to test the vitality and worth of some exotics in the school system. What lias been acclimatised will survive; the rest we can let go—with a sigh. -The Roots of Culture. Culture expresses itself in the relationships of man with .man and. of man with Nature; It is not something developed in a spiritual vacuum, but in the mundane arena where man associates with man and where mind asserts its dominion over matter. Whether that culture is good or bad depends upon - whether man's associations are those of [ mutual helpfulness or those of conflict. It depends ev?n more vitally upon the correspondence of life.'•with Nature. Today the dominant-. note of our civilisa i tion is one of psychological, social, and industrial conflicts, traceable in large measures to the fact that we are living dangerously out of touch with Nature, and building up artificial and unreal conditions of life. These things express- themselves in spiritual confusion, and in physical, mental, and moral inertia. In one. of, his recent novels Sir Philip Gibbs sounds this note of serious warning to English people: "England will have to pay for this divorce from Nature. Social life has no roots in mother earth. ' Spiritually this is oad. English character has been formed by a people very close to their fields and woods and flowers and trees. Now it is being formed in picture palaces and tube trains, in mannequin parades and night clubs." . -There may be cause it not excuse for such a "state of things in England, but there is neither cause nor excuse for it in New Zealand- Geographic and economic conditions dictate that we live in close association with Nature. In our fortunate case, the path of prosperity is the path of physical and spiritual health. Nationalising the Schools. When our New Zealand cultural v achievement does begin, if ever, to express itself in an original literature, art, and science ffc will be found that , these express our own history, and our own reactions to our native environment. No indigenous culture ever developed otherwise.. A rural bias in the school curricula should not be interpreted as a narrow utilitarian ambition, but a-s such a rationalisation and nationalisation of our schools as will direct more attention to the real facts of our New Zealand life and the character of our natural environment. There has been a rural bias in some of mir secondary, schools for many years. might coma; as a\surprise to some to i-sarn that while the urgent necessity for correcting obvious economic maladjustments in the community was one reason for the re-orientation of the curriculum, the chief reason was a wish to raise the cultural standards of the schools. Need for Keform. The advocates of the suggested reform are frankly of the traditional tvpe of academic secondary' School on the following grounds:— First, a schedule of studies transplanted from the public schools of England cannot well be acclimatised in New Zealand. Much of its significance and sense of reality are lost, and it cannot be expected to relate our children with their environment either aesthetically, or practically. Secondly, the schools have most tinfortunatelv substituted for culture and efficiency-ideate the lesser aim of acquiring -merit by the .passing of certain examinations. and have allowed the public M estimate their efficiency on that basis. Where alternative courses are offered, the academic course is exalted as "the best course,'• and confused with a true cultural course. Thirdly, this practice has led to progressive selection cf students according to their'quick-wittedness and their success as examinees, irrespective of culture or of industrial efficiency. Since the majority of students so 6elocted by the system cannot; or do not, wish -to find work either in the Public Service or in the learned professions, and since they have had no training outside the scope' of their examination, they . look for a city job where they can make money by their wits. This has tended to aggravate an already top-heavy. industrial organisation,...built .up and manipulated in. the interests of private money-making rather than in the interests of national wealth-production. Collaterally it is producing a social, stratification that has no obvious relation either with community service or with standards of culture. Finally, since the' secondary schools have been forced by the- system into paying more attention to smartening up and sharpening the wits of Btud«nts than to developing true culture, encouraging. the will to . work, or imparting knowledge that can be usefully applied, the general effect has been to produce ■ a-' attitude towards- lifd that, in this country at least, is: deplorable if not positively. dangerous. A Breeze from the Country. In conclusion,' I offer the following suggestions for combining practical and cultural aims in New Zealand secondary schools:— (1) Build up > in the school an efficient wealth-producing and creative organisation,: within which all voca- . tional groups , ate working co-opera-tively rather than, competitively, and. preparing to carry on similar work in the wider community, (2) Associate the studies with a . new creative epoch in world history. ; -As the destructive epoch through -which we are passing is the corporate expression of. almost universal competitive acquisitiveness, so the creative epoch Will express the new spirit 4nd method- of co-operative associai tion of man with. ma_i and of man with; Nature.; The. prevailing world restlessness is- indicative of deeprooted dissatisfaction.!. Our young people are ready for a new message of inspiration,' which it is the duty of the schools to give.. - (3) ".Let the: studies be: related to our .New .Zealand: conditions and environment, and. -to what is conceived to be the ideal-social and industrial organisation for this Dominion.(4) Some specific cultural aims should be: . (a) To restore or strengthen the capacity to appreciate simple pleas-ures-and to enjoy recreative , activities such as are afforded by rural life and Nature associations. The urgent needs of our young . peoplo are not- really met by. elab- . orately . staged • entertainments, -■which pretend to offer an escape - into a world of romance, but which in reality no more than narcotics purveyed commercially for sordid gains. We must liberate our young people from subservience to commercialised entertain-