"MUCH LUMBER"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 144, 15 December 1933, Page 15

"MUCH LUMBER"

EDUCATION SYSTEM

OBSOLETE PRESCRIPTIONS

POST-PRIMARY SYLLABUS

" That there is much lumber in our educational system will, I think, be freely admitted," stated the headmaster (Mr. W. A. Armour) in his annual report presented at the Wellington College prize-giving ceremony last night. "We are too prone to allow our curricula to be moulded on the requirements of somewhat obsolete examination prescriptions rather than to insist thai such prescriptions should be based on well-considered and approved educational practice and theory of today. "The feeling in the secondary schools is that it is precisely the difficult and changing times of the present which demand a serious investigation into the whole of our post-primary system of education. Moreover, it is felt that such an investigation should precede and not. follow the institution of new types of school; for surely it is illogical and even erroneous to invert the order in which educational reform should proceed. Yet that is exactly what is being done in New Zealand today. This form of procedure is the more erroneous, when we are informed that New Zealand, a young country, must not and should not adopt the schemes of other lands, but should develop a scheme of education suited to her own particular needs. SURVEY OF SYSTEM. "Hence I affirm that now is the time and ■ now is the opportunity given to us to make a survey of our post-prim-ary educational system, and from this survey to say what courses of educational work we should carry out and what types of schools we should develop. Such a process of action would immediately make necessary the jettisoning of the lumber attached to the education of the average post-prim-ary pupil of today. I would include in this lumber much of the mechanical operations attached to the early stages of mathematics so that a more rapid attack could be made on more advanced operations. Algebra and geometry would become separate subjects in requirements demanded for graduation from one stage to the next, and for many pupils geometrical drawing would be substituted for geometry itself. - "Meticulous measurements and processes would be abolished from the early stages of science teaching, or postponed to later stages, while a scheme of general science containing chemistry, biology, and electricity would ,be substituted for the scheme in operation today. In the languages such as French and Latin more rapidity is required in reaching the stage where reading and even conversation in the language can be carried on. ,It is true in. the former language that immense strides have already been made; but the reading matter prescribed for first-year pupils in the text books in use is generally designed for the child of ten or eleven years, rather than for, the pupil of thirteen years. As for Latin, the old stereotyped method in. which a little grammar and sentence structure is done as a. preliminary to reading easy passages of Caesar, will, if continued, soon have the eCect of eliminating its study altogether from many of our schools. For a very fair percentage of ouv pupils it would be disastrous if they had no opportunity of pursuing the study of Latin, but tho new method must identify its study with'the, actual life of the ordinary Roman citizen of the Golden Age. One needs only to be acquainted with some' of the fine text books recently issued to realise what. I mnnn. AH teachers will, I am sure, agree that the list of authorised text books is far too limited. The restrictions imposed in this direction are stifling progress. ... BROADER LINE OF STUDY. "It is becoming more and more evident that our studies will have to take broader lines. For example, history, geography, economics, and languages require greater co-ordination, as do mathematics, physical science, natural science, and social science. The widespread cry against such co-ordination is that if pursued such a scheme will produce only a smattering of knowledge apd superficial facts about a great many things. Wo who are engaged in education have a horror of the term 'smattering,' and whenever this bogy is raised we are inclined to retreat from any move wo have made towards generalising our scheme of teaching. But does one do really well to be frightened off by such an accusation, which may, after all, have no real educational truth behind it? Should we not rather give to our pupils over the first two years and even perhaps during their third year of postprimary education a wide vision of the fields of knowledge, with a narrowingdown to certain definite lines discovered' to be suited to various groups after the generalised courses have been taken? "In days gone by schools flourished exceedingly well on the classics and mathematics. More and more subjects have crept into the time-table until today it is overcrowded. What then is going to happen in ten or twenty years' time? That is the problem on which we should bend nil our energies."