HOMEWORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 78, 1 April 1936, Page 10

HOMEWORK

PRINCIPAL'S VIEW

"OUTCOME OF FEAR"

While reporting to a meeting of the Wellesley College Parents' Association, the principal of the college, Mr. W. H. Stevens, M.A., made some comments on the question of homework for pupils. Mr. Stevens said that- he agreed with practically all that had been written to the newspapers against homework, as he believed the j principle of setting home lessons for primary school children was mischievous. However, many parents asked for homework and it was apparent that they considered the lack of it a weakness in the organisation of the school. "Ultimately, I think that fear is at the back of the erase for examinations and the extensive demand for more home lessons," said Mr. Stevens. "Parents generally, realising the increasing competition in every art and profession, and with the knowledge of the effects of the recent depression still fresh in their minds, are naturally extremely anxious about the future welfare of their boys. They would like them to get a flying start in the race for economic independence and the obvious way to obtain this lead is to pass the necessary preliminary examinations as early as possible." SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY. Mr. Stevens said that he was quite prepared to cut out home lessons entirely, but he considered a little preparation was beneficial and developed a sense of responsibility. There must be a happy mean somewhere and it would be unwise to abandon something altogether merely for the sake of laying down a hard and fast rule. "I do not thinki that some realise that teaching methods have Improved considerably since they were at school," Mr. Stevens continued. "The methods employed in teaching reading and number work have completely changed, and many well-meaning parents who attempt to help their children in these subjects only succeed in confusing them. Indeed, accompanied as these efforts frequently are by caustic references to new-fangled methods and to the intelligence of the people applying them, the wonder is that the child retains any confidence at. all in his teachers. It would be far better if parents of children in the primers and in, Standard I refrained entirely, from attempting to teach reading or arithmetic. MODERN TEACHING METHODS. "I may say that we have the greatest trouble with children who come from the so-called private kindergartens. However well meaning the owners of these schools may be, the majority of them possess absolutely no knowledge of modern teaching methods. The" children from these schools usually come to us in Standard I, when we have to teach them what they should have learnt in the primers. "Actually the application of psychology to education is rapidly lifting pedagogy right out of that class of work which requires the mere appli-| cation of rule of thumb and is making j it more and more an applied science," j said Mr. Stevens in conclusion. "Every boy is a problem—and. so are his parents. In some cases the parents are a bigger problem than the boy. I think that it is the duty of every parent to read at least one book on the psychology of parenthood. If parents would do so, I am certain that they themselves and their children would benefit very greatly."