RADIO AND SCHOOL HOMEWORK

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 258, 29 July 1939, Page 10

RADIO AND SCHOOL HOMEWORK

Scientific invention during the last half-century has effected marked changes in the lives, habits and outlook of the people. The bicycle, the motor-car, electricity, the cinema, the radio, and the aeroplane have each placed their impress upon civilized communities and. influenced various readjustments in their routine and social life. Even school homework, hitherto an accepted part of the routine of juvenile life, has experienced the impact, and a large question mark has been placed alongside the word “radio” in this connexion. The subject received some prominence during the week with the publication of two sets of views by school principals in Wellington in answer to a questionnaire. Mr. F. Martyn Renner, of Rongotai College, considers that wireless has “a very decided effect on anyone’s ability to concentrate, and not a very good effect at that. Even if a boy can do well with the wireless on, he adds, he. could do better with it off. Miss N. G. Isaac, Principal of Wellington East Girls’ College, declares that we have to accept certain facts of the position and leave it to the future to provide the answer. My first comment (she says) is that we obviously'have to reckon with the radio as part of the equipment of the home. My second is that with housing difficulties such as exist at present, we cannot reasonably expect all to have quiet rooms for homework, though we can hold that out as an ideal. My third is that there must be rising a type that expects to have a background of noise and that prefers to have it so —hence the 73 per cent, of homes with the radi° on practically always. Time -will show whether the race will suffer an emotional and nervous strain, or whether the human body will - adapt itself to the new conditions. It seems to be a choice between some kind of adjustment in family routine in order that the school homework will be done under circumstances and with a degree of efficiency that will justify the task, or the abolition of homework altogether. It would certainly be better that it should be dispensed with altogether than that it should be done indifferently. On the other hand, its value as an aid to. self-disci-pline and the stimulation of the faculty of concentration is so great that any sacrifice involved in a readjustment of the family routine would surely be worth while. Some may argue that the educative influence of the radio would offset that provided by homework, but the trouble is that the large proportion of people consider the radio rather from the standpoint of its entertainment value than from its educative influence. It is an interesting question, and also a veiy important one, and might Well be profitably discussed between parents associations and teaching staffs.