DEMANDS ON TEACHERS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 106, 8 May 1933, Page 9

DEMANDS ON TEACHERS

TO FUNCTION AS PARENTS

Speaking at the civic welcome today to tho delegates attending the jubilee conference of the New Zealand Educational Institute, .Mr. W. A. Armour, headmaster of Wellington College, said it seemed to him that teachers' were being asked to. take upon, themselves, in addition to their ordinary functions, those of parents. Homos did less now with regard to the education of children than they did in the old days, he thought, and the schools were being asked .to do more. He believed the schools were responding nobly to the sometimes unfair and unjust demands made upon them, . ■ "The work of a teacher is onerous," Mr. Armour added. "We are said to have many holidays, but the work is a great tax upon -one's mental as well as physical capacity." "There were in New Zealand many professions, but teaching was not admitted as one of them. Some said; that teaching, like the Church, was a calling, not a profession, and he wondered what the differenco was. It seemed to him that the chief difference was that in a calling one was supposed to do a great deal for little or no remuneration, whereas in a profession one might look forward to earning, as. time went on and one gained experience, a very considerable amount of remuneration. (Laughter.)