Call to look more closely at leisure

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 9

Call to look more closely at leisure

School pupils today need to be taught more leisure time activities to prepare them for the “big wide world,” says the new headmaster of Christ’s College, Dr Max Rosser. Dr Rosser said yesterday he would like to see leisure time subjects, such as art and music, built up at the school. “We are going to have more and more leisure time and therefore these activities will become increasingly important,” he said. “Christ’s College has all the standard academic subjects covered, but I think we need to look a little more closely at the leisure side.” Dr Rosser was installed as headmaster at a service in the school chapel yesterday morning. He has already spent 10 days at the school, getting to know his way round. His first priority now would be to “get to know the troops.” “It is vital to know who everyone is. For that reason I don’t think the roll should get much bigger — it is a rather nice size now.” Although he is Australian by birth, Dr Rosser considers himself a New Zealander at heart. He came here in 1969 to do a doctorate of philosophy in

chemistry and became a non-teaching tutor at King's College, Auckland. At the time of his appointment he was a house master at King's College. Dr Rosser said he did not want to follow the example of some boys' schools, both here and in Australia, and make Christ’s co-educa-tional. “I think we have the ideal compromise here where girls from some local schools come in to the college for various classes and some of our boys go out for classes at the girls’ schools.

“At the end of the day they still belong to their own schools," he said.

Corporal punishment, another traditional element of boys’ schools, would not be phased out immediately, said Dr Rosser. “In 1985, in New Zealand, boys expect to be cracked over the backside for certain minor things. It is swift and soon forgotten. It is a very simple solution to some of the trivia of life, while counselling or other methods are so long-winded and sometimes quite resented by pupils.” While he was personally in favour of corporal punishment, it was on the way out and schools needed to look at ways of coping without it.