THE TEACHER’S TASK

Hokitika Guardian, 12 October 1928, Page 7

THE TEACHER’S TASK

“A teacher’s function is often defined as moulding of character. He is compared to a potter and the pupils to the potter’s clay,” says Professor Mahajot S'aliai, in vne Indian Review. “But, to treat a child as a. lump of clay with possibilities of being wrought into this design or that is cruel, if not atrocious. If a simile be needed it is decidedly better to compare him to a seed which lias the germ of immense possibilites in it independently of a maker. It is the duty of the teacher to discover of what-accomplishments a particular pupil possesses the germs in him to provide the necessary opportunities of self-expression and to see that he grows straight and tall and yields a rich harvest of its l>est fruit and flower. But the role of the teacher is that of a passive regulator rather than an active builder. He is in no case to interfere with . the spontaneous growth of the child. He is not to thrust on him his own conceptions and ideas. His duty will be admirably don© if he takes care that the innate tendencies do not lead the pupil into evil ways, that the pruning knife is not spared, when it is necessary, to rein ive the rank growth that wastes the sap of the trees and spoils its beauty. When the child stoops or falls, the teacher is to provide a prop, when he withers for want of exorcise of his faculties the l teacher ■ opens out new .fields of activity, and when moral death threatens him at the time of difficulties, the teacher is to protect and save him. The work oT tire teacher is thus like that of a gardener, and yet unlike, for while the latter has to look after crops of plants, the former has to supervise the growth of individual human l>eings. There are general laws—the principles of mental constitution and growth to guide the teacher just as there are laws of plant life which the gardener places before him. But the laws of plant life are the same for all plants of a kind while for the teacher each pupil is a unit of instruction. The teacher, therefore, must needs possess a stock of knowledge hv far' tlte larger, and a skill a,ml instinct by far the more perfect and penetrating.”