PRIMARY TEACHERS AND THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 139, 8 March 1929, Page 13

PRIMARY TEACHERS AND THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Sir, —May I be allowed to say a few words in reply to your leading article in to-day’s “Dominion,” in which you ask primary school teachers to outline more fully their objections to the junior high school and to show how by more liberal staffing, ' etc., present primary schools could satisfactorily carry on? In particular you ask how could the primary schools take over the special function of the junior high school —the deliberate study and classification of juvenile aptitude? . , May I say that the junior high schools at present established in New; Zealand are doing little more, if any, in this direction than are the present primary schools; I have perused the stated aims and the syllabuses of most of the junior high schools and have questioned ex-schol-ars, and on that information have based my conclusion. Any grouping that is done is more in the nature of “intelligence” classification than anything else, the most intelligent group going furthest with the so-called secondary subjects. The prevalent idea that in a junior high school children go round trying different courses in order to find out their aptitudes, just as a woman tries on hats in a milliner’s to find the one that suits her, that idea is preposterous, and I am sure no junior high school would attempt it. AU that can be done is to advise the parent as to whether the child is fitted for an academic career or not; the same advice can at present be given equally as well, if not better, by the primary school teacher. And when given it is of little use unless the parent will be guided by it. If the fond parent has decided that Johnny must be a doctor it is often of little avail to inform him that/ Johnny would make a greater success of navvying; vice versa, although Bill’s argumentative skill obviously indicates in him a possible future Solicitor-General, yet the £4 a week of his father finally consigns him to the grocer’s counter. After all, is it really of much use to attempt to diagnose at twelve the future careers of our boys and girls? Is it really worth while to set up an expensive machine for so nebulous a purpose? My experience of children is that if left to themselves to make a choice of alternative courses of study they would invariably choose what, to them, appeared to be the easiest one, while the teacher’s choice would give the academic course to the intelligent child; as a matter of fact, the intelligent child usually does well in all subjects whatever' their bias may be. The primary teachers are merely suggesting that the new conditions embodied in the recently issued syllabus be given a chance to assert themselves, but there is a great possibility that if the reorganisation of primary schools consequent upon the establishment of the junior high school system takes place, the new syllabus in its senior section will be stillborn ; obviously the new syllabus and the new te-t books should have been held over until the future of the primary school had been definitely decided.

In the past the proficiency examination in Standard VI has absolutely cut tout from the primary school any differentiation in curriculum since the examination was uniform from Cape Maria van Diemen to the Bluff. The basis of the test was the three R’s, and a teacher was usually considered proficient who successfully piloted his students through these subjects, even to the partial neglect of other branches of study which loomed less largely in the examination; the new syllabus carries with it the promise of greater freedom. Owing to the implied abolition of the “proficiency” examination, although many teachers fear its chamleon-like reappearance as the “primary school leaving certificate,” whose requirements, (not stated) have still to be complie' 1 with. Still, primary teachers generally have been enthusiastic over the new syllabus and its greater elasticity, and given some of the conditions existing in the lower forms of secondary schools, junior high schools would no doubt have successfully dove-tailed the new subjects of the curriculum into the old. But these conditions —smaller classes —the same freedom in selecting text books as would be granted if the pupils attended the same form in a secondary school, etc., have not been conceded. We are psked to make bricks without straw. To give two instances we are asked to teach French, and yet are not allowed to see the class, has a text book. Standard VI 'should specially study standard poetry and prose, and yet we cannot ask children to get an anthology, nor is one supplied free; the same children if at a secondary school would have at least one of the many excellent text books now on the market. All we primary school teachers ask for it an opportunity on an equal footing with the post-primary institutions to show our work. We claim that the teachers at present in charge of the upper classes of the primary schools are second to none in their suitability to teach the child nt the adolescent stage: the present senior primary teachers of the Dominion have reached their position owing to their knowledge of the technique of teaching, their inborn ability and wide experience, and above all.- “humanising” influence on children, which comes only from a combination of the three previous quahficatl°bta nutshell, what we say is this: We have the personnel—give us the buildings, staffing, and equal conditions, and we shall make good. What is there in a name? It is the teacher and his influence that matters. —I am. etc., PRIMARY HEADMASTER. March 6. p.S.—i might add that there are no junior high schools in England as we understand them;.our conception is entirely an American one.