TAUGHT BY MAIL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 231, 16 September 1935, Page 5

TAUGHT BY MAIL

Children in Remote Areas

EDUCATIONAL METHODS How many people in the towns realise that the many everyday benefits they enjoy, and often fail to appreciate, rarely fall to the lot of country people, and that, excepting isolated instances, the pleasure and advantage which come from living in town are many years delayed in reaching dozens of country out-back areas! How few townspeople realise, when they send their children to school, the difficulties which country children overcome, and the way that they are gleaning their knowledge through the ■ Correspondence School at Wellington! Still fewer know it is possible for a country child to take both primary and secondary courses, up to matriculation standard, by correspondence, or that the method is made interesting to the pupil. Naturally, there are shortcomings in the system. Nevertheless the Education Department's Correspondence School opens many doors which otherwise might remain closed to a fair percentage of those children whose homes are too far from small country schools.

In Hawke’s Bay there are a good many examples of this; examples, too, of the efficiency of the learning-by-mail method introduced some years ago by the Department of Education to fulfil the needs of children in isolated sectors.

A “Tribune” representative saw for himself the matter and method of the Correspondence School, and was surprised at the almost personal acquaintance which tutors at Wellington are able to establish with their little charges many miles away. Every fortnight the children send their large blue envelopes containing their work to Wellington. While they are doing other work, their corrected examples are returned to them, accompanied with a personal note from the tutor in charge of them.

Many of these notes, particularly in the case of young children, are graceful and kindly in their expression, often including encouraging messages. Primers, for example, have sent to them small sheets of letter paper, decorated in colours with trees and flowers and quaint little pictures which would appeal to the childish imagination. On each of these sheets, which invariably accompany corrected work, is a simple, direct message couched in language easily understood and appreciated by the child.

Of course, the system has its disabilities, but where would many young New Zealanders be without it! One can admit obvious drawbacks, especially in homes where the mother is very busy and without much spare time to give to the education of her children; but learning by mail, as the Americans probably would have it, should at least have the effect of amplifying the initiative of the child.

In some instances, this system has been more or less of a refresher course for older people, and it is conceivable that not a few who suffered the effects of a shortened primary education have secretly gained much benefit from the correspondence courses taken by their children.