CONTENTIONS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21034, 9 December 1933, Page 14

CONTENTIONS

IV.—THAT A NEW KIND OF SCHOOL IS WANTED (specially written tor the press.) [By J. E. STRACHAN.]

The troubles that have marked the disastrous opening decades of the twentieth century may be comprehensible to the historian of the future ; but to those of us who are actually involved in these troubles their significance is far from clear. Civilisation seems to have come to a bend in the road with little indication of what is round the corner. Shall we go on as we have been going on a comparatively easy grade ? Shall we climb to the heights, or tumble ingloriously into the valley of humiliation ? I think most people are agreed that we shall certainly not be able to go on as we have been going. The old ways are discredited. They have produced such a devil's brew of conflict, fear, and confusion as has never before been seen in the world. There will be a change, for better or for worse, and if for the better, that change, I contend, must begin in the schools. I know that very few people will agree with me when I suggest that the schools of yesterday have a certain responsibility for the present state of affairs. Yet I do suggest it. They are to blame for what they have done, and for what they have not done. They have encouraged competitiveness and ac-, quisitiveness; they have perpetuated in the class-room a spirit of individual emulation; they have stimulated effort by a mean system of awards and punishments; and they have pandered to the popular demand for the kind of education that qualifies for money-making jobs. The ambitions so fostered and the capabilities so developed are just those that threaten to-day to make' shipwreck of our civilisation. Strangely in the face of such a tragic object lesson, the public still demands, and the examinationsdominated curriculum still encourages, such methods and aims. False Values. II would not be so bad if better things were not crowded out. It is true that many teachers and many schools have loftier aims ; but it is terribly difficult to realise them. A parent who is himself a teacher recently enrolled his son at a secondary school with this advice: " I know you are attempting all sorts of things in your school ; but I want my son to go bald headed fomatriculation." If hs does, he will no doubt be a very successful pothunter, but he will leave the school uneducated in any real sense, useless in point of giving a worthy service in the world, unable to use hand or brain in creating anything that is good or beautiful, and with no appreciation of the real values of life. The schools turn out a crop of such quick-witted individualists every year. They go into business, a few into the professions—teaching for preference, where they perpetuate the same viciou; circle—or they become brokers, commission agents, ledger-keepers, lawyers, or dealers in credit, of whom we have lar too many for our health alreadv. They are smart fellows, no doubt, and good fellows ; but altogether they constitute a heavy tax on the community. One of our major problems is to find something more useful, or at least less harmful, for these fellows to do. The schools have a positive responsibility there, encouraging the will to serve and producing the skill to perform. Essential Culture. The new type of school, if I mistake not, will have these aims. The study courses will have reference to the realities of our environment, both physical and social. Culture will be recognised as something that grows, or can grow, out of our own community life and work, not something borrowed or imported or superimposed. The school will be in every sense, part of the community life, industrial, social and recreative. Rather, shall we say, since our community life to-day is irrational and ill-adjusted, it will anticipate a better state of affairs and prepare for it. The teachers will be craftsmen, artists, and constructive thinkers—masters, in more than the academic sense, of the arts and sciences. The students will be apprentices and disciples moving towards an understanding of Life and a creative part in it. J It goes without saying that the m intin iate contact with Nature. The education of the New Zealand child cannot be begun or effectively developed otherwise. Fiom the cultural and the practical mrt n°f i! hIS is an essen tial whL lhat Physical adjustment }ectives S ° ne the educationa i obThe New School at Work. The rural secondary school will ?hJv u Cl \ ool farm - and all schools fir™ -n OOI § ardens - The school farm will serve many purposes It Sv'CT? 6 "1? tiy fOl the school, and on it the future farmers will get their prac-

tical training. It will engage in focusing and finding a solution for the agricultural community's problems, and will interpret to the community the work carried on in such agricultural research stations as Lincoln, Massey, Cawthron, and those of the Agricultural Department. It will provide the raw material for much of the processing industry of the school and finance it, and, in a school where boys and girls are taught together, will work in collaboration with the home science department. In much the same way the farm and related industrial sections will support the commercial and professional superstructure of the school community, just as it should do, but unfortunately does not, in the wider community of New Zealand. On the cultural and aesthetic side the school farm (or gardens) will provide that contact with Nature and Life that is as essential to understanding as it is to literary and artistic expression. There will be laboratories, too; but they will not be wasting time and material in the footling experiments of the matriculation syllabus. They must assist in the solution of problems raised in the industrial organisation of the school and of the community. There will be workshops and studios for the development of practical and artistic crafts. In all this work the inspiring motive of creative endeavour will displace the old competitive satisfactions. Escape from the Machine. Many of the students will find their vocation in the productive or processing industries. Others, formerly turned out to scramble for places in an overcrowded business arena, will discover a better service in the fine arts and artistic crafts. Along that line lies the most obvious solution of the problem of machinedisplaced labour. The enforced leisure created by the introduction of powered machinery in industry has so far proved to be a curse. It should be a blessing. It means that there is time and human labour available to raise the cultural level upon which we live. Here is a wonderful opportunity for the schools. Skill in artistic craftsmanship can be developed, and, collaterally, a market can be created as the standards of aesthetic appreciation are raised. There is room here for the men and the women who are now fighting for places in commerce; and the schools must initiate the educative process. Since social adjustment is as essential as physical adjustment, there must, I think, be more courageous and critical study of economics, sociology and politics. There will be practical studies, too, intended to build up in the school a properly balanced and wellordered social and industrial organisation, functioning co-operatively on the basis of exchange of valuable goods and services. There is plenty of room for constructive thinking along these lines. To Save Democracy. There must be an honest attempt to interpret the lessons of history, especially recent and contemporary history. Political theories and experiments should be critically examined. The sources of conflict should be studied, and history's judgment upon attempts to resolve or control conflict by arbitration, by financial, commercial, or political dictatorship, and by war. Students so trained will be less likely to be stampeded by sectional propaganda and should be able to contribute something to the constructive thinking of to-morrow. This may be more dangerous than the mild, innocuous lessons in civics to which we are accustomed; but it is not so dangerous as the present drift towards the abyss—unless, of course, we give up all pretence at democracy. In solving the problems of physical and social adjustment the new schools will find that they have also attained the higher aims of mental and spiritual recreation. Studies in literature, music, dramatic and pictorial art in the school will be enriched and ennobled as they acquire a new significance. The great cultural heritage of the race must be the better appreciated in a school organically related to Nature and to Life. There is no danger that in the attempt to deal with realities the humanities will be neglected. I contend, then, that a new type of school is wanted—the school that fosters the creative ideal rather than the acquisitive one, the school that rests its faith in co-operation rather than in competition, the school that exalts personal efficiency, health, and the will to work rather than vulgar self-advancement, and the school that strongly engages in the quest for the good, the true, and the beautiful in all human relationships. It is not too late to save our civilisation; but we must act quickly. If the schools say that they can help they should be given more liberty to try.