CHOOSING CAREERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 78, 1 March 1929, Page 8

CHOOSING CAREERS

THE DETERMINING FACTORS. RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS. “I do not think that at any time parents have beea so anxious to place their boys and girls in suitable avenues ot employment as at present, nor have they ever been prepared to make such sacrifices to attain that end,” stated Mr J. A. Colquhoun to a meeting of tho combineds School Committees’ Association last evening, when he dealt with the psychological aspects of tile question involved. Tile stress of unemployment was, he observed, partially responsible for the difficulties encountered, but fundamentally, all would agree that a contributory 1 actor to the position was the great advunce made in tile utilisasion of energy, requiring less manual labour. Concurrently with the rapid strides made in that respect, the same rate of progress had apparently not been maintained in adaptation to the changing conditions or the social system, while an additional feature was the very much larger proportion of tho female population participating in industrial disputes. These forces had outstripped the concept of conditions. The ooncept of more production meant more consumption, but Mr Colquhoun said he would not labour that point, in view of the arguments involved. He pointed out, however, that the education of children with a physical urge to agricultural pursuits appeared merely to be begging the question. Their objection should not be so much to criticise the conditions as to fit in with them. There was, stated Mr Colquhoun, a great lovo for the word “psychology,” and tho word could be divided into two classes, sensory and motor. The former were slow to react to an external stimulus, while the latter responded almost simultaneously, and these elements were productive of much of the trouble experienced with boys. Then there were extraverts and intraverts, the one being more in the nature of a critic than an actual participant in work, and the other having an innate desire for expression. Loading psychologists differed as to which sex possessed the dominant quality of that nature, and when they tailed to agree what qualification did the “ordinary common garden’ individual possess for tho classification of children, especially when parental hopes for tho future might he shattered. Parents had a responsibility in that direction, and they could not pass it on. They were the best judges to decide the future careers of their children, and should determine the point definitely. One could imagine tho mental perturbation of a parent on being informed by a psychologist that a boy, who was the apple of his eye liibdit make an efficient dustman. Sir John Reid, an eminent London business man, had stated that modern education systems wanted a new orientation of character training, and the failure lay in not making the child take himself seriously. Boys needed a certain amount of conceit, because they would then not “let down themselves or their parents for obvious reasons. The necessity existed for installing into them a serious frame of mind. Esprit-de-corps was easily cultivated, but there was a tendency to introduce too much school with too little personality. Self-dis-cipline came with pride, and a deliberate, conscious choice of career was needed. As the result of teaching experience extending over a period of 22 years, Mr Colquhoun said he was convinced that if there was a conscious choice of career half of the vocational troubles were solved. The boy should acquire prior knowledge of the conditions obtaining in the profession for which he Had an inclination, and no matter what the education system was, the fundamental principle in choosing a career was the realisation of an educational responsibility by both parent and boy.