“Schools Don’t Teach Boys To Think”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 17

“Schools Don’t Teach Boys To Think”

“Schools don’t teach boys to think,” said a former British Army major yesterday. “For commercial reasons they just teach them facts to pass examinations.” The former soldier is Mr W. M. M. Deacock, warden of the Australian Outward Bound School at Fisherman’s Point, near Sydney. He believes the Outward Bound movement, which began in Britain under the sponsorship of the Duke of Edinburgh, can do what he says the schools have not done. “The system is an exact parallel of the Communist Youth programme,” he said in Christchurch yesterday, “except that we emphasise Christian ethics instead of the ideals of the Communist State.” 500 Have Attended In the last two years the Australian Outward Bound school’s 28-day courses have been attended by 500 young men aged between 16J and 19j. Two-thirds of them have been sent to the school by industry large industrial firms, banks, chain stores, and Government departments—with the aim' of instilling the ideals of the movement into both rebels and potential executives. “We teach some basic skills, such as rock-climbing, canoeing, bush - walking, small-boat sailing, ski touring and snow survival,” said Mr Deacock, “but our more important aim is to give these young men integrity. “In that 28-day course we provide the moral equivalent to war. By using selfdiscipline and the honour system it is possible to take a mixed bunch of young men and awaken in them a recognition of their personal responsibility to society, of the necessity to lead and to follow, and above all to give service within the community. “We capture the fire andenthsuiasm of adolescents who are lost in the world to some extent, and give them an aim in life. At least a third of them are the kind

who sit around your Cathedral square. “The school is a bit like the Army, but we don’t teach them to kill—we teach them to serve up a decent day's work and enjoy their spare time. “Angry Young Men” “We make them into angry young men in the third week, and then we give them the answers and the desire to go out and do something about it.” It costs firms £75 to send a boy to the school for a month’s course, but they are able to claim some of it as a tax deduction. Boys who attend the school of their own accord, or parents who send their sons, pay £5O. The sponsor, whether it is a firm, parents, or the boy himself, gets a frank report at the end of the course. “We are multi-racial and interdenominational.” said Mr Deacock. “The boys make their own church, and it is not unusual to see a Jew and a Catholic taking a service together." In the few days since he landed at Wellington in the 27ft sloop Shaula, Mr Deacock has recruited three young New Zealanders to be trained as Outward Bound instructors in Australia. Two are from Wellington, and the third is Mr P. Temple, aged 23, a member of the Canterbury section of the New Zealand Alpine Club. “He was on the club's recent expedition to New Guinea.” said Mr Deacock, “and he’s writing a book at the moment. I’ll train the three of them, and you can have them back in due course for the Outward Bound school that is to be established here.” Mr Deacock plans to come to New Zealand soon lo live here for about a year.