NEW EDUCATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 198, 22 July 1937, Page 9

NEW EDUCATION.

EXPERIMENT DESCRIBED. IN VIENNESE SCHOOL. WELLINGTON, July 21. An outline of the system of new education introduced by him into an Austrian school was given by Dr Paul L. Dengler, director of the Austro-Ame-lican Institute of Education. Vienna, in a New Education Fellowship conference address at the Technical College to-day. For the purpose of his experiment, Dr Dengler stated, he had chosen a secondary school which catered for boys between the ages of II and 19 years. Ho had approached the authorities and obtained pel-mission to conduct his experiment on any lines he wished, piovided, of course, that he conformed to the law.

“L clioso one of those secondary schools that look just like a prison,” he said. Forty boys of varying types and conditions were selected, and 10 teachers, taken from the school he was then working at so that there would be no question of a picked staff, were engaged to take part in the experiment. Dr Dengler first approached the parents of these boys. He let them see and experience for themselves the actual conditions under which their children were required to study. He let them sit on the same hard seats and before the same wooden rows of benches at which their sons spont the greater part of the year. PARENTS’ EFFORTS.

Before long the seats and benches had been replaced by tables and chairs, and the walls had been decorated at the expense of the parents themselves. AVhero a parent could not afford to buy a table immediately—and there wore poor boys at the school —it was paid for at tile rate of a penny a week, and no one knew whose table had been paid for and whose had not.

The parents were encouraged to attend regular meetings at the school, anl classes were always open to the parents if they cared to watch tlieir boys at work.” After four years, not one father or mother was missing from tho general assembly, and added interest was given to these meetings by the presence of some interesting speaker. They also attended parents’ discussion nights, whore they met in the rooms their children were using, and actually sat at their own sons’ tables.

BOYS AS LEADERS. “I tried to make an experiment in •elf-government,” said Dr Dengler, introducing the methods of teaching he employed. “1 split the class into four sectious and appointed a section leader in each case.” These leaders were required to look after the boys in their sections, and to see that they did their work, were clean, and if one of their section was missing from school, find out the reason from the parent. If a boy was sick, it was the loader’s duty to call on the boy and tell him ’what was done at school during the time he was absent. The scheme was really a form of social leadership. After a time, the entire group was changed and new loaders appointed, so that there would be no likelihood ol any form of a clique forming. “I found that ’some of the .great talkers were poor leaders w'lien it comps time to do the work, while the quiet boys made good leaders,” he said. Duties were apportioned to the othei-3, and there was not one boy in the class who did not have some duty to perform. There was also a head leader appointed, who, together with the group leaders, formed a kind of school council. ONE BOY, ONE VOTE.

After this scheme had been in operation fur six or seven months, Dr Dengler permitted the boys to elect thenown groups and their own leaders. Each boy was given one vote, and he himself had only one vote, though he retained the power to veto —a power lie very rarely used. There was no punishment, and every method was used to arouse the boys’ interest in all that they did. Throughout the whole of his experiment. D v Dengler-said, lie hud striven toward a co-operation between parentsteachers and children. Only by tins means was it possible to do the best lor the child. . Referring to the work of a rrenen class in which he took the instruction personally, he said that he had \&- nored the accepted form of instruction bv grammar. The boys were made to think that they knew 1' reach, and though they made some terrible mistakes, the results were finally amazing '■After four years’ instruction the b„vs were equal to hoys who had had oi.dit rears’ instruction by the old method, and in an examination, students of 14 had obtained the same lesults as those of IS. At the conclusion of the nddnss, the meeting pasted a motion that arrangements should be made to Di Dcngler’s address recorded.