GEOGRAPHY CLASSES “MISS THE POINT"

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30040, 26 January 1963, Page 14

GEOGRAPHY CLASSES “MISS THE POINT"

(New Zealand Press Association)

NEW PLYMOUTH, J«n. 25. Concentrating on Pacific territories, geography cteees in New Zealand missed the point, purpose, and opportunity senooi geography mve, stod Dr. G. Jotoberns, Emeritus Professor of Geography at Canterbury University, in New Plymouth loot night. He was speaking at the opening at a post-primary teachers’ refresher course. Dr. Jobberns called the School Certificate examination a "mass quiz” and said teachers had become enslaved by IL “How can you possibly expect to contribute anything useful and reasonable to a balanced picture of this world of the 1960's when you are chained to a system like this—like a Nile-side donkey chained to a waterwheel, just going round and round over the same ground, day in and day out, year in and year out?” be asked. “There is one way to shake off the dead weight of the School Certificate examination, that is to accept the responsibility for setting your own standards, teaching your geography as progressions! experts out cf the fullness of your own knowledge of your own subjeat, and examining your awn pupils. “All I am doing is making a plea for a system of accrediting. ’•Then you can make your pupils think about something, rather than reducing geography to a tasteless mash or assorted bits and pieces of information about

assorted bits of the earth, getting your pupils reedy for the quiz questions of the present School Certificate examination.” Dr. Jobberns said that more than half of the new population of the schools would not get School Certificate or not go beyond it They needed some knowledge ot the world at large, not assorted information about New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Dr. Jobberns said he had long felt the need for something more appropriate in “these revolutionary times.” Most adult people had little enough understanding of what was going on around

them, ‘■‘For most of mankind it is a world ot vague insecurity and fear,” he said.