SCHOOL ENTRANCE AGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 July 1934, Page 12

SCHOOL ENTRANCE AGE

A Fallacy Exposed

When the Government, decided to raise the age of admission to public schools one of the reasons advanced in justification of its action was that children entering school at six or seven made more rapid progress in the school subjects than children admitted at five. Students of education (including Professor T. A. Hunter, of Victoria University College) at once pointed out that the argument was completely fallacious. Despite this fact, however, the same argument is still being produced in an attempt to give the legislation an air of authority and respectability.

WORK OF THE INFANT SCHOOL

The position is really quite simple. All that the much quoted experiments prove is that premature instruction, particularly in the three R’s, is wasteful and even harmful. If it were proposed that the education of the five-year-old should consist wholly and sol eb’ of such instruction he would

lose nothing by being excluded from the school. In point of fact no one proposes anything so stupid. As anyone who has ever been inside a good infant school knows, formal instruction takes a very minor place, particularly in the first, two primers. Most of the child’s time is occupied with games and physical exercise, singing, dancing and acting, handwork and drawing, listening to stories, and simple lesson in speech-training, nature study and hygiene. From the point of view of the all-round development of the five-year-old these activities are of far greater* importance than progress in reading, writing and arithmetic. But since the argument that “the child will make up the time he loses’’ applies only to the three R’s, it fails to provide justification whatever for the exclusion of the children. It should also be mentioned that when the time comes for reading, writing and arithmetic, the child is introduced to them through, “play-way” methods;' which make learning a much more enjoyable business than it used to be.

WHAT THE AUTHORITIES SAY Supporters of the legislation will search in vain for a single first-rate educational authority who argues that entry to school should be delayed until the child is ready for formal work. They will find, it is true, that men like Sir Percy Nunn, Professor Findlay, and Dr. Dewey are all opposed to premature instruction; but they will also find that, far from, concluding that the school entrance age should be raised, these world-famous educational authorities are agreed that in the light of our modern knowledge of the need's of young children the case for a wide extension of infant schools, kindergarten and nursery schools is irresistible.