Tikumu’s letter

Press, 15 April 1980, Page 20

Tikumu’s letter

Dear Readers, Most of you will have seen the accompanying logo, the symbol of “School Week 1980,” which started yesterday in school districts throughout New Zealand. The campaign has been planned by the New Zealand Educational Institute (N.Z.E.1.), an organisation . formed many years ago with the object of furthering the cause of education for the benefit of children and teachers.

During “School - Week” people may have opportunities to Visit primary and intermediate schools in their districts to. see children and teachers at work. However,, each school will be observing this special week in its own way, and advising the people in the community what is happening. The N.Z.E.I. wants New Zealanders to know more... about the schools in their communities, so they will appreciate the work being done by children, and understand the needs of education today. Schools, have changed a lot in the last 100 years and each generation of children has had different learning experiences. . You will notice this in the books you read. Stories written in the last 10 years are about children and teachers doing things

together — planning, discussing, working on projects and experiments, sharing ideas and helping each other.

More time is spent outdoors on field trips, and sometimes you will read about children visiting a person in the community to ask for advice or information. Parents seem to take a more active part in children’s education, perhaps because they are better informed about how to go about it Recently I told you about a book named “The Surprise Present.” In the story the mother helped a little boy to make an insect box for an injured hawk moth. She identified the moth by a picture in an encyclopaedia and read him the story of its life cycle. If you read stories written earlier this century you will get a different impression of schools and the way children learned — not necessarily a bad impression, and the children were not unhappy, but those were different times. This is reflected in parents’ attitudes to children as well. A favourite series in the 1920 s was the “Anne” books, and they are well worth reading if they are still available. The first one was ‘Anne of Green Gables.” Anne was a little orphan girl, intelligent and

imaginative. She had been adopted by. a stern, but kind-hearted spinster and her bachelor brother. He was a dear old man. Anne went to school in the days when infants learned to write on slates with squeaky slate pencils. On her first day at the village school, where the discipline was as strict! as it was in her new Home, she broke her slate over a boy’s head because . he called her “Carrots” or a name like that Anne had a temper to match her hair, and she did not speak to him for many years. As they grew older she and her enemy, whose name was Gilbert, bec a m e rivals, be cause they were both clever. Anne was good at

language and she loved to write stories, but she worried terribly about her mathematics (Euclid, as the subject was called in those days)« Anne and Gilbert both did well and gained scholarships to university. By reading books written and illustrated for children of earlier generations you can understand better the life style of the times in which they lived.

It is often said that schools are not what they used to be. This is true and perhaps during “School Week 1980” visitors will be able to appreciate the changes that have come about to cater for the needs of the children of todays