COST OF EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20961, 26 August 1931, Page 12

COST OF EDUCATION.

Sir, —"Interested" says the schoolmaster does about 25 hours a week and so is free when he leaves the school, presumably at 3 p.m. Tho following • facts may interest him still more. My 60 pupils do six to twenty sums each daily, according to the nature of the work. Every sum has to be inspected, therefore, two minutes is the shortest time in which I can examine each book. This means two hours' correction daily for arithmetic. Sixty spelling and dictation exercises take from 30 to 60 minutes to correct. The weekly batch of essays, averaging 200 words per essay, cannot be fully dealt with in less than three hours. The children's corrections in spelling, arithmetic, essays and, in fact, all written exercises, have to be examined. In a class of 60 this takes one hour daily at least. Every day there are pupils who, through no fault of their own, need special attention. This has to be attended to before school, at dinner time or after school. As a teacher cannot instruct backward children and mark exercises at the samn time, half an hour daily must be added for individual instruction. Every lesson has to be prepared beforehand by the teacher. Perhaps "Interested" thinks that because a teacher has passed his examinations no preparation of daily lessons is necessary This idea is quite wrong, for it is not a case of what the teacher knows so much as it is what the teacher is going to have his dullest pupils to know at the end of the lesson. Pouring forth knowledge is an easy matter. Causing a class to imbibe a maximum amount of knowledge with a. minimum amount of friction is quite another. This is teaching. The teacher's preparation (not learning) of lesions takes up much time. An hour a day 's a conservative estimate. In many schools there are probationers who have to receive special lessons. Then there is the week-e;id school sport, which is not always sport for the teacher. If "Interested" works this) little problem out he will find that a teacher with 60 pupils works over £3 hours per week, not counting the last two items mentioned. Perhaps "Interested" will find a new application for his slogan, "Equal pay for equal work." Information.