OTAGO SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.

Evening Star, Issue 10399, 21 August 1897, Page 4 (Supplement)

OTAGO SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION.

Mr D. R. White, M.A., of the Normal School, has, at the request of this Union, agreed to give ‘ Talks on Teaching ’ to the Sunday school teachers. The first of these “ talks ” was given on Monday, 2nd August, in the presence of a large audience, at the Y.W.O.A. Rooms. The subjects discussed on this occasion were ‘Organisation’ and ‘ Order,’ and, us the report which follows shows, wore dealt with at length in a practical manner;— I have often spoken at meetings of tho Teachers’ Educational Institute, bat this is the first time that I have had the pleasure of addressing a gathering of Sunday school teachers. 1 feel somehow that I will have your sympathy in what I am going to say if tor this one obvious reason alone: that Sunday school and day school teachers are all of them engaged in the name service, working in the same cause. Teachers are all working in tho same vineyard, if I may so express it, TVomay be at work in different parts of the same vineyard, but that, It seems to me, is the only difference there is between us. We have in our work a common aim and a common purpose—viz., the inculcation of right ways of thinking and right ways of living; and if, in giving my experience on one or two simple points connected with this common rim and purpose, I should succeed in creating a desire in all of us to do our work in a better way than it has been done in the past, then I for one shall be glad that we have met together to talk over some of the difficulties that perplex and embarrass all those who are engaged in tho interesting and arduous work of teaching. It is a very good rule, I think, never to speak on a subject if we have not given it some special study, nor to write on it unless we know something about it, acquired by personal observation and experience. In consenting to speak to the Sunday School Teachers’ Union I feel that, to some ex- . tent, lam breaking this rule, for I know nothing practically about Sunday school teaching, though I have given a good deal of study to tho art and practice and principles of public school teaching. _ lam breaking the rule, though it may be in only a minor degree. I feel that what I have to say can have only an indirect bearing on Sunday school work ; something in the way of encouragement rather than by way of instruction, for general methods of education suitable to public school teaching are clearly only partially applicable to tho work and routine of the Sunday school. And I make this statement at the beginning that you may not be disappointed—that you may not expect too much from my remarks. They may not have any measurable influence in modifying your methods or in improving your ways of teaching; and at the outset I may say that they are not given with any such specific purpose or intention. M v remarks are intended to ba helpful, not dogmatic. In estimating tho value of any general remarks on a subject of this kind one other circumstance has to be taken into account, and that ia: that methods of teaching cannot be much improved by merely talking about them. My experience has shown me, in training students, that it is of little use talking about teaching. One lesson with a class in the presence of your trainees is worth a hundred lectures. Talks on teaching, therefore, cannot have much practical value. Principles and sound knowledge must come first, 1 admit, hut it is easier to acquire knowledge than it is to applv it in

THE ART OF TEACHING.

It is at this point that failure overtakes most of us, and without this power of applying our knowledge we are but learned incapablea so far as teaching is concerned. From this reraarkyou will not infer that I undervalue principles and precepts and preaching. I know they have immense value in all the affairs of life, and I know, too, that to question and discuss your subject Is the beat way to get thorough possession of it. This is the first thing to do, and for this reason I am glad to find that the Sunday school teachers of Dunedin meet periodically for the discussion of points of interest, but after all something more than this is required. Tho Sunday School Union should turn their meetings into a kind of normal or training institute for the drawing up of notes of lessons for discussion and illustration of methods, and above all for giving practical or model lessons by your most experienced teachers. It is only in this way that you come face to face with the real difficulties of teaching, only in this way that you can appreciate all the difficulties and compare your methods with those of others. You are not in a position i to see what reforms are practicable, nor able to know what is necessary, or how far you are falling short of the highest ideas and the best work unless you see for yourselves how others manage a class and teach it. Your every seventh day experience will aid you, I daresay, to some extent in understanding the arduous work of the everyday teacher, and iu arousing a fellowfeeling of sympathy for the class of men and women whose daily duty it is to teach and manage large numbers of children. I must say, too, on the other hand, that no public school teacher can pay a visit to your Sunday schools without recognising instantly that you have very many difficulties to encounter, some of them, of course, common to all teaching, but others peculiarly difficult and quite inseparable from the conditions under which Sunday school work has to be prosecuted. Having made a friendly visit to some of your schools, I must add that until I saw them for myself I had no idea of the inherent difficulties, obstacles, and hindrances that stand all round the management and organisation of a large Sunday school, I am not surprised to find comparatively few public school teachers in the ranks of Sunday school teachers. DIFFICULTIES OP SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHEE3. I should not like to undertake teaching where organisation is surrounded with so many difficulties. Look at accommodation to begin with. It is not a question of cutting the coat to fit the wearer, but rather the impossible task of cutting down the wearer to fit the coat. In some of your schools, for instance, the various classes are drafted off into the church building, where, though there is room enough, the arrangement of the pews interferes with the proper position of the teacher and proper arrangement of the class; and in others there were as many as eight, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty classes all crowded in one room. With such accommodation you need never hope to bring your order or your organisation up to the highest point of efficiency; you must submit, to the inevitable consequences of such an environment —a certain amount of noise, some interruption, and a good deal of discomfort. Besides this, some of your schools are, in my opinion, too large for effective organisation. A Sunday school with some 500 or more on the roll presents difficulties of control and organisation that may perhaps be overcome or lessened in some way, but they will never be removed altogether, and when a school reaches this size I think it would be better to have a branch school in another part of the city. I make this suggestion on behalf of the teachers in the junior classes, or rather more especially on their behalf. The work in this department is the most arduous and trying in the school if the classes are at all large. Sunday schools have, I think, usually three grades or departments the. senior classes, the intermediate school, and the juniors. The senior or upper classes usually find fairly suitable accommodation in the small side rooms of the school or church, where the teacher and the class enjoy immunity from the noise and distraction of adjoining classes. It was gratifying to see so many senior classes. The - organisation of the junior departments is, I should say, capable of considerable improvement, but I make this statement subject to yonr correction and subject to the general reservations I have already laid down, for I had but a hurried look at the organisation and ' work of the staff. In some schools I saw I found in the infant department 50, 70, 100, and in one case nearly 200 pupils. These large numbers were all in one room, and were generally treated as if they were one class, and the real work of control practically in the hands of one teacher though there were others to assist in different branches of work. Your infant departments require more room; you should establish branch schools to relievo the main schools if you cannot enlarge your present buildings. Why should you not have the use of the public school buildings for Sunday school purposes if you are not able to build suitable schools for yourselves NEED FOR BETTER ORGANISATION AND BEFOBSI. But even under your present conditions the organisation of the infant classes should be placed on a more satisfactory basis. I have formed the opinion that the work undertaken by the teachers of the junior department of the Sunday school is more than they should be asked to do. It is more difficult to organise it and keep it in smooth working order than the other departments of the school, and if I were to compare it with tho work of the infant public schools I should say that while it lasts it is much more wearisome and exhausting than anything in the public schools. Modem methods forbid large classes for instructive lessons in the infant department. In singing or physical exercises the whole class may be taken together, but any other kind of lesson should be given to small divisions or classes. Even where the number in your infant or junior department reaches but fifty I would divide it into two or more classes, with a teacher or assistant for each class, who would be responsible for the whole of the wurk of her class, and when the numbers are much larger—from 100 to 200—there should be a corresponding number of classes and assistants, and a superintendent of the junior Sunday school, who would see to the direction and supervision of the whole school, and' arrangeasyliabuaandtime-tableforalltheolaßsea. There should be a superintendent of the junior classes and a sufficient staff, so that each

teacher would have,' say, from twenty-five to thirty-five in her class. There would be no .difficulty, surely, in getting the additional teachers for the junior classes.. They might be drawn from the senior Bible classes, and imder a good superintendent this junior school staff would get a training to fit them in time for the work of the intermediate school, and in this way introduce them to the difficulties of class management, and familiarise them with methods of teaching and the maintenance of good order. They would occupy the position of pupilteachers a training for a higher position in the school. Under what seems to me to be tin present system of organisation the difficulties of control, of teaching, of keeping order and attention with such large numbers would overtask the ability of the most experienced and skilful teacher, and when I saw some of your teachers courageously facing it all I could not refrain from giving them a word of encouragement for the real, energy, and skill which they displayed in carrying out their selfimposed duties. It is only a woman that would be found at this kind of work; the superintendents of the school find it wiser, I suppose, to keep at a discreet distance from the toil and trouble of the infant classes. I repeat that the work of your larger infant departments is carried on at an expenditure of nervous energy and with an amount of anxiety I should think that must make it unattractive and irksome ; but it the classes were made smaller, and placed •under the efficient direction of one whose whole time were given to the work, theje would cot, I feel sure, he any disinclination to enter on this branch of Sunday school work. Perhaps my suggestions on this point are very wide of the mark. It is for you to try and to say whether they are feasible or practicable. I would place pupils in groups or classes round the sides of the class room; have, say, two silent or quieter lessons alternating with lessons of a more demonstrative kind, as, for instance, hearing or learning of texts or tickets, the teacher telling a short story, extension exercises, etc., etc., alternating with reading from hooks or card’, or teaching a hymn from the blackboard. The lesson should be varied and should not exceed fifteen or twenty minutes iu length. This subdivision of the work would relievo the strain on the teacher of dealing with the whole school as a class, and, except in the case of singing an I the opening exercises, I would not have any collective lessons for the junior school. In this connection I should say by all means have the harmonium in the junior o'asses ; it ia more necessary there than in the upper school. The superintendent of the junior school should arrange time-tables for the separate classes, apportioning the lessons and the time iu a way that would minimise the noise arising from three or four classes, and at the same time making the whole school work go on pleasantly and without undue wear and te>r of one’s patience in the vain endeavor to keep a whole school of little ones quiet and attentive. I suggest that you organise it into small classes, each with its teacher and its own appropriate course of work. To locate and arrange the classes as I suggest something more should be done. The seats or forma in the infant class room? are those used for public purposes, and are quite unsuitable for class seating and class arrangement. They take up a deal of floor space, and should be put on one side altogether and a number of shorter ones obtained, from 6ft to Sit long, and of proper height. This would enable you to group the classes round the room with the forms placed as three sides of a rectangle for each class. This external circumstance—the proper location and arrangement of classes—has much to do with the successful management of the school.

CLASSES TO BE GRADED.

In the junior classes, too (the classes to which I am referring), the pupils should be graded or classified, for it i i only by grading the pupils that you can arrange the lessons, instruction, and occupation to suit the ages, capacity, and activities of these little people. I may say here, too, that I think the classes both of the junior and intermediate school should be graded, if not into the same number of standards or divisions as in the public schools, certainly in something approximating to it. Some such basis of classification should be adopted. In some of your schools this method of classification is, I know, carried out; perhaps it is so in all of them. The standard classes of the day school afford an easy means of classifying your pupils, and if the superintendent makes up his mind to this course it could, I think, easily he adopted. Pupils will cccisionally express a wish to select their class or their class mates, and occasionally it might be wise to allow the choice, but these exceptional breaches should not be allowed to interfere with the general practice and rule, which, if carried out, would not in anyway militate against the popularity and success of the school. A word as to the organisation of the intermediate school. It is more difficult to say what should be done with the intermediate school, where the classes are so small-geuerilly speaking, from eight to twelve pupils. I think you are right in organising in small classes, for the smaller the class consistent with some esprit de corps tho more effective the work ; besides, the larger the number of persons engaged in Sunday school work and thesmaller the cla‘ses the greater will be the influence on tho pupils of the teacher’s personality-jjrffe character, which, after all, is the one thing needful in Sunday schools and in day schools. If your teachers were all trained for the work, possibly such small classes would not be necessary. I suppose experience in Sunday school work has proved that small classes are the best, and I would not suggest any alteration of the system In some of your schools there are from eight to a dozen such classes, and in others from thirty to forty, and in theso cases it is very difficult to suggest anything by way of improving the

ORDER AND ORGANISATION of your intermediate school. Whor* the whole room is taken up with tho old fixed high-backed pews, more like sho?p-fohls than anything else, you can do nothing unle-s it is to remove them altogether and scat tho whole class ro • m with movable forms, and then you will be able to place your classes to better advantage. Get a number of short forms, say six feet in length, and arrange the classes in rectangular shape, as I suggest, around the room on the open floor space. In other schools where there are not these fixed seats, but where you have the ordinary long public forms, I would get a number of short forms four or five feet long, and utilise the long forms by placing them front to front with one of these short forms placed between them against tbs wall, thus giving you conveniently arranged spaces for your c'assea of, say, a dozen pupils. If iu addition to this you procured a number of light baize screens about sis feet long and four and ahalf high, and placed one on each side of your class you would isolate them fairly well, and remove to some extent many of the distractions that at present interfere with good management, order, and attention The rectangular space should be large enough to permit of the pupils being seated, say, three or four on each side of tho teacher, and as many in front of him. These may seem unimportant kinds of suggestions, but I know if I we-e a superintendent of a <y school I should lose no time in trying what effect this arrangement and plan of the classes would have on the general tone of the school work. You have difficulties other than those of organisation. I suppose if I were to ask you what gives yon most trouble you would tell mo that it is keeping the classes in order. Now, what I suggest in the arrangement, isolation and location of your classes, would go a long way to assist you in securing good order, but of course it will not do everything. The next thing to look to in getting good order is the position—attitude and demeanor of your pupils. It is a most difficult thing to maintain good order. Only those who have tried it know how difficult a thing it is, and how necessary, too, in order to teach well and with purpose.

( To be continued )