TOO MUCH MADE?

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 4, 29 September 1933, Page 13

TOO MUCH MADE?

Teachers and Personality

SYSTEM OF GRADING Commenting on that “elusive and indefinable attribute, personality,” at the School Associations’ Conference yesterday, Mr. A. E. Lawrence (South Canterbury) said that altogether too much was made of it. A board aud an inspector might come together, and give an applicant for a position a mark for personality. No one man was the same every day. The danger lay in the fact that the mark so gained might gain the applicant the appointment of headmaster, for the Act said that when the chief inspector and the board agreed they could go past the grading system (in making appointments). "Would any of you go past your own grading system?” asked Mr. Lawrence. “Take any position in other walks of life —would you appoint as bead of a department anyone simply because he has been longest in the service? It does not stand to reason. Some latitude and elasticity in selection should be instituted.”

Mr. Lawrence also remarked that the constant changes In teachers in many schools was not in the interest of the teachers, and was certainly not in the Interests of the children. Indeed, they were most dangerous to the children, ns such changes were often made at inopportune times. “I say again that it is impossible to express in marks that indefinable thing, personality!” said Mr. Lawrence 'in conclusion.

His views met with the approbation of the delegates generally.