RESPONSIBILITIES OF TEACHERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27072, 22 June 1953, Page 14

RESPONSIBILITIES OF TEACHERS

“SOCIAL REVOLUTION” SEEN Speaking on the changes in postSrimary education in recent years, Mr . Leggat, headmaster of the Chfistchurch Boys’ High School, enumerated in an address on Saturday many of the duties that, in reefent years, had become the responsibility of teachers. He was not grumbling about these additional tasks, he said, but he- drew attention to the. great change that had taken place in the community’s attitude' towards schools. It was now assumed, he said, that a school was responsible for the conduct of its pupils out of school hours and in school holidays. He recalled that 30 years ago, if a child committed a minor fault, the disapproving adult who noticed it would say, “Where do you live? I will tell your father.’’ Now, in similar circumstances, the question would be, “What school do you attend?’’ with the added remark, “I shall tell your headmaster.’’

A social revolution, he said, had taken place; the school was taking what had previously been the parents’ place in supervising the moral, physical, and cultural development of the child.

“Think how rarely a school was asked to do these things a generation ago,” .said Mr Leggat, “and ask, ‘Where from here?’ and ‘where are the paragon teachers of the future to come from’?” He felt that people did not realise that the shadow of the schools was falling too heavily across their homes. Any change, he considered, must come from parents.