Unmarried-mother teachers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32789, 14 December 1971, Page 16

Unmarried-mother teachers

Sir, —I could have told Denise Anker that it does not pay to be too honest with the Education Department Twenty years ago I had to leave Division C of Auckland Teachers’ College because I was honest enough to tell of my marriage in the interim between being accepted and actually starting college. Years later I was almost required to leave Christchurch Teachers’ College (secondary division) because I admitted, openly, that I intended to expand the private teaching I was doing into a commercial college, which I have done. I should like to commend Miss Anker on her attitude towards her very lovely daughter, and hope that she will attempt to get some non-departmental qualification such as P.C.T. and P.C.T.T.—Yours, etc., (MRS) M. E. RITCHIE. December 11, 1971.

Sir,—Regarding the nonacceptance of an unmarried mother, the principal reason given by the Department of Education seems false. Lately several married girls have been posted to city rather than remote schools. One young married received a second, if not a third, posting to our school while her husband completed his degree. Well, Christmas is coming and geese are getting fat Oyez! Ye bishops, deans, vicars, and curates, forget your Christmas messages, your television appearances, the bells and the carols. Remember the Mother and Child. Remember Mary Magdalene, and although we may be a bit of a Dad’s Army when it comes to wrestling with principalities and powers, Leone Stewart has raised the oriflamme. Now is the hour. To your rightful places. Ye must lead the Resistance, or else admit ye turned Quisling long ago and, “In wind and cold and rain, Christ, the great Lord of the army, Lies , dead upon the plain.”—Yours, etc., R. H. ANDERSON. December 11, 1971.

Sir,—To teach effectively a teacher must maintain discipline, and. to do this, she must have the respect of her pupils. So the teacher of teen-age commercial pupils who has broken society’s rules must either forfeit the respect of her students or, worse, inculcate the belief that her own social behaviour is the norm. The solution to this girl’s dilemma would seem to be to take up kindergarten or’ play centre work, where the children would be

too young to be aware of her problems.—Yours, etc., GRANDMOTHER. December 11, 1971.