POINTS FROM PRIZE-GIVINGS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31238, 9 December 1966, Page 3

POINTS FROM PRIZE-GIVINGS

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, Dec. 8. John McGlashan College is to benefit from a memorial trust fund of 10,000 Canadian dollars, the retiring principal, Mr I. G. Garden, announced today at the prizegiving ceremony. The Douglas Brook Jamieson Memorial Fund will honour the memory of a boy who lived in the college as a boarder during 1961 and 1962 while in forms I and H. “His father retired from an executive position in New Zealand and returned home to Canada at the end of 1962,” said Mr Garden. "Douglas entered high school in British Columbia and during 1964 fell ill. He died on December 9 of that year.” In a recent letter Mr Jamieson asked him to make the announcement on the fund at an appropriate time before he departed from the college, said Mr Garden. “He wishes that the income from the trust be used for the upkeep of land and buildings, with priority to the new sports field project” Rejects Go-Go In Ngaruawahia a A-

headmaster who attended a secondary school dance held in Hamilton this year said yesterday he had never been so disgusted in his life as he was at the dancing. In his annual report at the prize-giving ceremony of Ngaruawahia High School, Mr E. B. Allison said many secondary schools had been forced to abandon school dances because, in part, of “the frightening preference of pupils for the sinister and often obscene sort of entertainment known as ‘go-go’ dancing.” Mr Allison made the remarks when he compared the prefectorial system with other systems of student control. To hand over a large measure of control of a school to the children was to pander to the desires of free-spending teen-agers, he said. “At the same time, it is unfair to the pupils themselves, who come to learn and to develop under guidance, but not to run the school,” Mr Allison said. “I feel that much of the arrogance of some sections of modern youth comes from the modern misconceived notion that youth must be given authority. “I agree that pupils should indeed be given responsibility and held responsible in order to develop reliability and a

sense of duty, but no pupil should be asked to usurp the authority of his mentors,” he said. ‘A Fair Mess’ An Auckland judge, Mr Justice Hardie Boys, told the Papakura High School prize-giving last night that his generation should be made to listen to what young people have to say. “Prize-giving ceremonies are all wrong,” he said. “What do you want to know of what my generation thinks? “Between Mr Wilson, Mr Smith, Mr Holyoake, Mr Kirk and myself, we’ve made a fair mess of things. “It is not so important for you to know what my generation thinks. What is important is for us to know what you are thinking.” Young Speakers At Otar* College, Auckland, the guest speakers were Te Aroha Henare, aged 17, of Auckland Girls* Grammar School, and Axel Lauri, aged 16, of Manurewa High School. The chairman of the Southern Secondary School Board, Mr J. A. Holmes, said they had been Invited because the board realised the important role that teen-agers played in today's society.

Crash Course A one-year-teachers* college course in Asian language is an academic urgency, the head of the languages department at Rangitoto College, Auckland, Mr E. H. F. M. Meijers, said today. He was replying to the regional superintendent of education, Mr R. L. Bradly, who said he doubted if teachers could be taught at training college to teach IndonesianMalay in one year. “1 would never advocate the one-year crash course as a permanent feature,” said Mr Meijers. “But since this situation is an academic emergency, I feel that such a course would be responsible. It would be taken by people who have proved themselves academically.” Mr Meijers said he visualised such a course ending when the universities had caught up with the situation. He knew of schools were German was taught by language graduates who did not have a qualification in German—“and Indonesian-Malay is considerably easier than German.” The Rangitoto College Board of Governors has approved in principle the introduction of an Asian language course.