Citizenship Begins In Kindergartens

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29315, 21 September 1960, Page 2

Citizenship Begins In Kindergartens

Watch a child at Kindergarten trying to fit two prices of a puzzle together, watch his unbustled concentration with no thought for the clock on the wall.

Watch him share his pleasure with a friend when he completes the job and the satisfaction on his face when he shows the teacher. Then you will have glimpsed briefly the meaning of kindergarten training.

Time to concentrate without interruption, time to complete a job are basic needs of any worker, young or old. But they are needs which are being pushed aside more and more in the rush and bustle of modern living with its mounting, high-pressure demands. In a modern home, where a small child must leave a task unfinished because his mother is hurrying to get him ready to take him to town, and is too busy to answer all his questions, frustration can disturb his mind, insecurity can creep in. “From birth to five years, a child has more to learn than at any other stage of life. If he is not given the opportunity to concentrate at this age he will probably never learn to give his complete attention to work,” said Mrs A. F. Johnson, president of the Christchurch association of the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Union.

Kindergarten education aims to give a child his early training in good citizenship by providing opportunities of companionship .with others of his own age, of learning to share and co-operate and, above all, the important factor of giving him time to concentrate and complete what he is doing, whether it be painting, carpentry, building something or gardening. Sound Foundation “When a child learns these fundamentals of education at kindergarten he is ready to profit by the more formal skills he will learn at primary and secondary school, and in later life,” Mrs Johnson said. Education was then built on sound foundations.

“If we had more kindergartens, where children had these opportunities to play and grow in the

truest sense of the words, I firmly believe that having learnt to give and take, how to concentrate on interests and how to be good citizens, there would be far less juvenile delinquency,” she said. About 2500 children attend the 31 kindergartens in* Christchurch. All but two of the kindergartens are in permanent buildings. When the association opens four new ones next year, at the urgent request of parents, it will be able to extend its service to 320 more children. Building will soon begin on a new kindergarten at Hornby, plans and specifications have been completed for one at Hei Hei, tenders have been called for another at Kendal street, Waimairi. Tenders close at the end of this month for a kindergarten at

Burwood; sketch plans are under way for buildings in Rutland street <St. Albans) and at Rangiora.

The new Sunbeam Kindergarten is already being built to replace the old building. All will be opened during next year. The total cost of the new buildings will be at least £38,500 without providing any equipment Two-thirds of this amount will be provided by a government subsidy. Biggest Building Project

“This is the biggest building programme the association has faced in one year,” said Mrs Johnson. “We have about £9OOO in hand and must raise nearly £4OOO to make up the association’s amount towards the total cost of the buildings. We hope to raise this amount on Daffodil Day (Friday next) when we will have a street appeal and hold street stalls in the cit yand suburbs. We shall also sell goods in a Colombo street store, which has been lent to us for the day.” The fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Free Kindergarten Association in Christchurch, now the largest association in the New Zealand union, will be celebrated next year. The association began 49 years ago, when it acquired an old building in Cornwall street and named it the Sunbeam Free Kindergarten. Here the first kindergarten teachers were also trained. Children attended the kindergarten in the mornings, when students did their practical training. In the afternoons the teachertrainees did their theoretical work. That was the beginning of the association’s work, which has now grown to such vast proportions in the community. For some years now the association has maintained the Christchurch Kindergarten Teachers’ College in Park terrace, where 50 students do a two-year course to fit them for the kindergarten teaching profession. The association’s share of the running costs of the college also has to be raised by voluntary effort.