SCHOOL TEACHERS' STATUS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21198, 23 June 1934, Page 9

SCHOOL TEACHERS' STATUS

PART m COMMUNITY LIFE

MR C. T. ASCHMAN'S ADVICE Mr C. T. Aschman, chairman of the Canterbury University College Council, gave school teachers some trenchant advice on their social status at the opening social of the North Canterbury Branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute last night. He advised them to take a much more active part in community life. "The teaching profession seems to be held in poor estimation by the community. It is not regarded as being equal to the medical or legal callings, and this is very largely the fault of the teachers themselves," said Mr Aschman. "They have been far too apt to regard the schoolhouse walls as their horizon instead of taking an active interest in the life of the community. The doctor, the lawyer, and the architect have their work judged by the public. Unless teachers go out into the world similarly, make the results of their work known and take a part in community life, they will never receive the respect that they deserve.

"There is a great amount of joy in doing something for the community quite apart from the schoolroom. The profession is too fine to be considered second rate, and a rectification of the position lies with yourselves." Illustrating the difficulties with which teachers of the past were faced, Mr Aschman said thai to secure grading status a teacher had to "degrade" himself. To a staunch churchman on the school committee, he had to declare that he was never guilty of putting less than a shilling in the plate; to a prohibitionist that he hated liquor, and to a convivial chairman of the committee he had to extend an "invitation to a pint." By such means he was able to succeed.

Mr Aschman asked the teachers of to-day to remember the efforts made by their predecessors and to redouble their efforts in the interests of their profession.