PAIDOCENTRICISM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 August 1924, Page 14

PAIDOCENTRICISM.

THE BASTS OF THE NEW EDUCATION. INJ>IVIDUALISTIC PLAY-WORK. That a new period of something really new in education has arrived with modern individualistic methods., of the kind that encourage work hv arousing interest in it rather than by the old fashioned idea that the subject was a more important matter than the hoy himself, was the view expressed by Professor John Adams, the eminent British educationist, who is delivering a series of lectures at the invitation of the New Zealand Government, at Victoria College on Monday night. The subject of the address was: ‘“What Underlies the New Education?” “Is there,” asked D,r. Adams, “a new education? What they do in America when they wish to arouse interest in some old subject is to dress it up. They talk of the new psychology, the new art, the new philosophy, and so there is a ‘new’ education. But the more some things change the more they are the same, especially so is this the case in philosophy.” The present time was perhaps the first- when the new education could he truly spoken of, a nodal period, as was the year 313 with the Greeks, the Augustinian period of the Homan Empire, then the year 1000, and soon thereafter more closely following epochs. What happened before the war and to-day had n great gulf between them. In education the new points of view meant a complete reconstruction of ideas. Hercalitus annoyed him as much as Plato or Aristotle, for they found all the new ideas long ago. Their standpoint was different, but that was largely our oqlv claim to originality. The doctrine that nothing was a. fixed state was probably as true to-day as when it was made then. Things, like children, would not “stay put,” as the Americans said. Looking at the matter from genetic Viewpoint, “stay putters” became “stand putters,” with minds made up for all time, by no means a desirable state of things, yet one not infrequently applicable to teachers, who could sometimes have the date of their training college days ascertained by the contents of the contemporaneous text books, which they had never improved upon, and stiil dished out. What was the meaning of teaching as a process; what marked the . ‘‘new education”? Entirely new and revolutionary doctrines were not likely to be found without some basis, however remote, in the past. He would "adopt a word coined by somebody else to express the new education’s aims. “Paidocentricism.” A great- mistake in the tandem fashion of teaching of the old days, was Latin in front as the more important, and John behind, being nearer the whip. But now John was recognised as quite as important as Latin, and tne foundation of all newer methods was really attention to the needs of the pupil. Individualism of the pupil was more emphatic to-day than ever before. Even 25 years ago he had noted symptoms of paidocentricism in the title of an address, “The Turing Child.” Madame Montessori was an active disciple of individualism and had attracted the attention of the world as a mere echicator seldom succeeded in doing. Everyone thought they knew as much as the teacher, but more attention was paid to Madame Montessori because she was a, doctor. Perhaps she over-em-phasised her attitude in regard to paidocentricism, hut it had an excellent result. She could not deal with a class of 45 pupils by her system with only a directress and assistant in c-harge, and yet admit of individualistic training, though she was in doubt whether the class system would survive eventually. He had no doubt that in New Zealand they had worked out individualistic methods on the Dalton plans before the latter was heard of, and even 40 years ago in London Mr Eve had boasted that every boy in his school had his own time-table. The Dalton scheme undoubtedly emanated from the Montessori system.

Teachers fell into two great groups, the good old grinders, u’ho believed in hard, disagreeable subjects, and those who believed in encouraging hard work by arousing the individual interest of the pupils. A lazy hut capable hoy once astonished his teacher bv willingly learning mensuration and chemistry at his own request. It transpired that he was to have a large roll of Indian silk from an uncle in the F/ast Indian Company, which would just make a balloon big enough to carry one passenger, the weight of that hoy. But when the calculations os to gores and other details went wrong his interest in mensuration and chemistry ceased automatically. That showed how a hoy would do real hard work to achieve his own ends.

The opposite of the good old grinders were the “primrose pathers.” Interest and pleasure were by no means synonymous. A dentist could be exasperatinglv interesting. A certain amount of necessary trrudger.v was called for to develop a hoy. hut the automatic drudgery insepaiahle from schools was sufficient. If the work were done* with interest behind it, it ceased to be drudgery. To attack work iii the spirit ol play was the solution ol Air Caldwell Cook in Cambridge, but sporadic work was not encouraged, an excellent example of paidocentricism. where each boy was encouraged to address the others in the position of a supposed teacher. Teachers must realise when dealing with children that they arc oiganisms, and not machines. 4heir point of view must he appreciated and adopted. They must live their nun lives and he themselves while they are being taught. Jn America they spoke of “selfexpression,’’ and here and in England, of “soll'-realisation." hut after all, the American often meant the same as the English writer, but we had the advantage in that our term implied a certain amount of self-subordination. Sell-expression was often merely the passing of unpleasant remarks, and could become coincident with mere self-assertion. If teachers needed a slogan—they had slogans for everything in America —they could not have a better one for self-realisation and paidoeentrieism than that given by Our Lord Himself, “The Child in the Midst.”