EFFECT OF ALCOHOL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21809, 4 September 1945, Page 6

EFFECT OF ALCOHOL

TEACHING IN SCHOOLS NEW SYLLABUS ISSUED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 4. in evidence before the Royal Commission on licensing yesterday, Dr. Beeby, director of education, stated in a memoranduo that the teaching of temperance and the effects of alcohol had been compulsory in the primary schools for many years.

Considerable "latitude was allowed teachers in the planning and treatment of lessons.

“The new syllabus on health education recently issued states that the specific teaching on the effect of alcohol is reserved for the upper school programme, where it will be treated in a scientific manner as part of the health course,” continued Dr. Beeby. “In broad outline this provides for the discussion of the food value of alcohol, the effect of alcohol on the human body, and alcohol in the light of modern research. ‘The treatment of alcohol in this way largely removes the controversial element which has hitherto caused some diffculty in presentation. The lessons outline simple facts in a manner that does not lend itself to misinterpretation.” From the beginning of next .year, Dr. Beeby said, general science, including some /human physiology and health education would become a compulsory part of the curriculum for every secondary school. That would embrace some emphasis of- the importance of moderation and self-control.

Expressing his personal views, Dr. Beeby said that if “temperance” was taken, as sometimes it was in popular usage, to mean total abstinence from alcohol, the teaching of it raised peculiar difficulties for the teacher, “If he is expected to teach that even moderate use of alcohol is a sin he must condemn in the eyes of many children the actions of their own parents, who do not consider those actions sinful and whose actions are apparently not condemned by the majority of the community,” he said.

The witness said he would not care to lay down for all teachers any fixed methods of approach to the topic. The teaching of temperance in the wider sense of moderation in all things was an essential part of true education and should begin in the cradle. It was an attitude of mjnd that should pervade all work of the schools, indoor and out.

“Two of the major reasons why people over-indulge in alcohol are, I believe, sheer boredom and a cowardly desire to escape from life’s difficulties,” Dr. Beeby continued. “Whatever its failings, tire modern type of school does try to remedy these two defects, but the civic and other authorities must do their part too."