WANGANUI TEACHERS’ SUMMER SCHOOL.

Evening Star, Issue 11673, 4 February 1902, Page 3

WANGANUI TEACHERS’ SUMMER SCHOOL.

There is at present sitting in Wanganui what can rightly be called the first summer school for teachers in New Zealand, and the following, written specially for our columns, will be acceptable to those who take an interest in matters educational. Some 280 are in attendance at the school, nearly all belonging to. the educational district of Wanganui. A summer school differs from Saturday classes, and even from summer classes in some important respects. To the latter the teachers come, and then go away again, having had little intercourse with tneir co-workers from other parts of the district, or being left to fill m spare hours and evenings as best they can ; while in a summer school there is a pervading atmosphere of unity, and care is taken to bring all teachers into closest relationship, and to knit them and the educational authorities by the bonds of nodal and friendly intercourse. The summer school has a guiding mind, a. manner committee, and a programme that fills in most of the spare time as well as the working hours. The x.r*t aim of a summer school is the educational advancement of the feathers attending. Situated, as many of our educational districts are, with no training colleges, and with only the pupil-teacher system as a means of training teachers, it will be easily seen that in some subjects, such as science, the teachers can he only poorly equipped. Then come in the new demands for drawing, for kindergarten work, and for hand and eye training; a new spirit, too, is wafted o’er the seas from progressive countries, and this is taking shape in a greater freedom for the teacher. How can he, then, meet these new demands? How can he, isolated in a back-blocks school, keep abreast of his more favored brethren elsewhere, and so master his work that he can prove to the world he is worthy of the added responsibility which is being put upon him? There arc two wavs of answering this : either by Saturday classes or by a summer school. Where it can be worked the latter is preferable, since to it all teachers can come, while to the former some or many may he prevented by distance. The summer school at Wanganui was organised by Dr Smyth, chief inspector of that district, who had opportunities while in Germany and Scotland of seeing summer schools at work. Its session lasts from Monday, 20th January, till Wednesday, sth February. It was late in starting, because it was thought advisable to wait till the certificate examinations were over, and the Education Board willingly gpve the necessary extension of the holidays. The subjects taught are six in number; New Zealand botany, science for schools, kindergarten work, brush work, modelling in plartzceue. and physical exercises. Botany in in the hands of Mr Tennant, now of the Ashburton High School, and the science in those of Mr Gray, rector of the Palmerston North District High School. Both gentlemen are experts, and are keeping clearly before the minds of fieir students the following points: —The natural curiosity of the child should be allowed scope, observation should be carefully cultivated, thought and expression should ever be exact, wherever possible the child should make his own experiments, all scientific teaching should lead to the explanation of some machine or natural phenomenon in which the child is interested. Kindergarten is taught by Miss Avison, of the Timaxu Main school; brusbwork by Miss Landcls, of Dunedin; and modelling by Mr Andrews, of the Wanganui Technical School. These subjects are to provide the means by which the pupils’ thoughts can find different modes of expression, by which they can render them more definite, and link them to action. If the object lesson cf the day had been on leaves, why should there not be later on a drawing lesson on the leaf, or a brushwork lesson to define its color, or :v modelling lesson in which form, proportion, and details must all be seized ? Cannot such a lesson be used as the finest means of recapitulation and the surest way of fixing what was taught? Moreover, modelling lends itself so easily to illustrate several subjects of the school course. The lessons in physical exercises, by Mr Potter, embrace drill with dubs, dumb-bells, and wands.

Snch is the direct benefit. Bnt what of the indirect? Nearly every teacher of the Wanganui district is present Down to the last-appointed pupil-teacher they are on the seat of the learner. There are walks together, there are discussions togefuer, there are occasional evenings together. There is the engendering of a fine enthusiasm and a new interest in school work. The mayor of the town, with that hospitality for which Wanganui is noted, has given a Saturday afternoon excursion on the river to the teachers and their friends; a two days’ trip to Pipiriki is projected ; and on the last day of the session there is to be a garden party in the afternoon and an “at home’* in the evening. Think what it means to the young pnpil-fceachers, to the back-country teachers, and to all members of the profession, thus to be brought into social contact with their co-workers, and to »e« themselves thus honored! Were there no other result, the enthusiasm kindled by the gathering would be worth more than all the cost.

But this is not all. The revolution which is at work in our schools, taking from the inspector certain of his duties and handing them over to the teachers, necessarily involves a certain change in the relationship between inspector and teachers and a fresh conception of the inspector’s duties. When teachers have the right to puss nr promote all pupils up to the leaving standard, and have shown themselves capable of exercising it, what is left for the inspector to do? He must look upon himself as the director of some fifty or mine schools, in each of which experts are at work testing various methods of education, and his business is to go round, stimulate the indifferent, guide and? direct the more inexperienced, praise the faithful workers, and gather the results into one form for the. good of all. Fifty or more experiments can thus be going on at once, and be, as master mind, can supervise all. and thus in the shortest possible time the best method can be ascertained. This is the new conception of the inspector’s office which is gradually rooting out the old; but the old dies hard ; and to hasten its extinction Dr Smyth hopes, by a few talks with his teachers, to better define the new relationship. That the summer school of Wanganui is moving on right lines, and that it is a sign that our educational system is coming into line with the most progressive countries, cannot well be doubted by those interested in the right education of our young.