STUDY OF U.S. EDUCATION

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27443, 1 September 1954, Page 5

STUDY OF U.S. EDUCATION

FULBRIGHT STUDENT’S IMPRESSIONS

AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS TO TEACHING

A year in the United States under a Fulbright award has given Mr A. T. Zeigler, headmaster of the Richmond School, Nelson, a great many ideas and “very valuable experience.” With his wife, who went to Sydney to meet him, Mr Zeigler arrived at Harewood yesterday by Tasman Airways airliner. Most of his year’s study period was spent in Salem, capital of the State of Oregon—about equal in area to New Zealand, but with a slightly smaller population. There he had seen one of the best and most modern educational systems in America, said Mr Zeigler. The three West Coast States, California, Oregon, and Washington, paid their teachers and university lecturers the highest salaries of any of the 48 States and could, consequently choose teachers from among the best in the country.

School buildings and equipment generally were of a very high standard, and rather better than anything New Zealand possessed, said Mr Zeigler. It was of this aspect of American edu-cation—audio-visual aids and other equipment—that Mr Zeigler made special study. During his time in America he sent several reports on this teaching method to the Education Department; now he was back in New Zealand he would .write further reports on his findings. School Radio Stations Universities and some schools in America operated their own radio stations, Mr Zeigler said. Libraries of tape recordings and discs were available for programmes. Mr Zeigler learnt many methods that he intends to introduce into his own school. Discussions he had taken part in with other teachers in what the Americnas called “teachers’ workshops” had proved very informative, he said.

“I found that they had much the same kind of problems as we in New Zealand have,” said Mr Zeigler. “American youth is not so much different from our’s, although they appeared to be more sophisticated. During my time there, many different experiments in discipline were being carried out. On the whole, the Americans do a good job of educating their children for the kind of society they will enter.” •