OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 112, 14 May 1930, Page 6

OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM

FAR TOO MECHANICAL

TO MEET FACTS OF LIFE

CMMES ADVOCATED

A thoughtful address on the future of education in New Zealand was delivered last night by Professor J. Shelley, of Christchurch,. at a largely attended public meeting at Victoria College, held under the auspices of the Australasian Association .'of.. Psychology and Philosophy. ': . ' .' ' ~.:.".

1 Piofcbhor Shelley said most people wouid acknowJcdgo Unit ;i fiist-class system of education was introduced in New Zeala^l in 1577, but it &UH existed! Compared with thai in England, New Zealand education was on the whole very ■much-too mechanical from top to bottom. Theio was too great a tendency on tlio parl of those in authoiity to expect results of a more or less mechanical kind, to ask for reports of a. mechanical'kind, and to involve head teachers and other skilled people in doing mechanical things which were absolutely, unnecessary. That system had been passed on down to the child,' who was required to do a great deal more merely mechanical work than was good for him. There was no use going to a lot of trouble teaching a person how to sharpen the tools with which ho was equipped for work, and not teaching him how to use them. LEADING SOCIAL INSTITUTION. Dealing with education in a general way, Professor Shelley described it as the most important social institution in the world to-day, not excluding the family. It should be the centre of the home; if there was a centre to the home to-day, in most cases it was the garage. Most people thought in these days in terms of travelling. The typical institutions were hotels. The localised civilisation in the home was disintegrating, while the world consumption of rubber and divorce statistics were rapidly rising. He mentioned these facts to demonstrate the big change that was taking place in social life. He did not think it was of any use looking to the churches for a lead in the matter of reorganisation; nor could much be expected of the commercial organisation. The only institution that showed any reasonable promise of giving a lead in such problems was the school. PREPARATION FOR ACTIVE LIFE. The speaker said we must do away with the system whereby the y child regarded what he- was taught in school merely'as something designed to satisfy the demand of the teacher and not the demands of life. New' Zealand had a good typo of people, and.there was no reason why she should not lead the world in the '■ development of education to meet the modern requirements of life. We must break down that isolation of the' school from life under which education proceeded along mechanical lines. The teacher must be dissolved into the class. The child had to realise that he must by the sweat of his brow develop his own life. With the teacher as his leader he must Bo made to thresh things out for himself —to think. - The present idea of education in New Zealand must be broken down. Professor Shelley said he would li"ke to think of, the school being replaced by a child colony, child village, or child community in which the children would engage in finding out for themselves, under guidance, all the various things about Nature, doing everything possible • for themselves, and at the same time reading in their books how, the same things had been done, in the past,: thus enlarging their own experience.. KEENER CITIZENSHIP. Professor Shelley said he wished particularly to emphasise'- that on the whole the child had no adequate training for citizenship. To take the organisation of society from its adult setting and put it into a little paragraph in a book and think the child was going to understand ' his relation to. other human, beings merely by reading words was not going to develop the spirit of citizenship in him. He must learn in terms' of his own-active life ix he was to take a valuable part when he became an adult. By way of emphasising the need for the change he advocated, Professor Shelley asked how much real interest was taken- by people in. New Zealand to-day, educated under the present system, in political issues put before the country.. If a real keenness in the affairs of life could be developed in the' child such apathy would be removed. ;:;: _;■■■' THE ADOLESCENCE GAP. . 'Turning to another phase of the educational problem, Professor Shelley said he regarded, as the most serious gap in. the, social mechanism in most countries to-day the adolescent period. Up to the age of 13 or 14 the child felt responsibility to the school and ' the teacher. '■■■. \ At about the age of 20 he felt responsibility to the home and his wife. Between those ages "there was a tendency for him to be responsible to nobody. He had no mental responsibility or'feeling', of his own dependence or of other people's dependenceon him. That adolescent'gap—the most vital years in life—was most serious, and some move would have: to be made in the near future to fill it. It need not be by means'.-of a school. It ought really to be through a sort of institution to which the child could go, after leaving school, while waiting to find employment. There ho could bo trained in citizenship until he found the right job. A brief discussion followed, and the 'speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks by acclamation.