NEW EDUCATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22779, 13 July 1937, Page 11

NEW EDUCATION

AUCKLAND MEETINGS OVERSEAS SPEAKERS MANY ADDRESSES GIVEN SECOND DAY OF CONFERENCE The hundreds of teachers, students and others who ;ire attending the Auckland conference! of the New Education Fellowship were kept fully occupied yesterday, when the first full normal day's programme was carried out. At the six .seminars, or sectional meetings, in the morning oversea lecturers gave addresses 011 a variety of topics, including infant, adult and rural education, the schools of modern Germany, British administrative methods and the question of freedom for the teacher. Questions were answered as far as time would allow.

Before noon, Dr. Paul Dengler, of Vienna, spoke in the Town Hall on "The Children of Europe," and after lunch Mr. G. T. Hankin, of the English Board of Kdncation, discussed progress in Fnglish public education over the past 20 years. Simultaneously there was a symposium on parent education in the Technical College Hall, three of the visitors contributing talks. Two evening general lectures were held, Mr. Hankin speaking on "The Community and the Control of Education," in the University College Hall and Dr. William Boyd, of Glasgow, in the Technical College Hall on "Problem Children." SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY WORK IN RURAL AREAS TRIBUTE TO NEW ZEALANDER A tribute to an outstanding piece of work done by a New Zealand teacher, Mr. H. C. D. Somerset, at Oxford, North Canterbury, was paid by Dr. Edmund de S. Brunner, professor of education at the Teachers' College, Columbia University, at yesterday's session of the New Education Fellowship Conference. He said that a notable contribution had been made to adult education and also to the closer linking of the school and the community. Originally the community was a very isolated one, said the speaker, and Mr. Somerset was persuaded to stay there for six months only. He has, however, remained for 12 years, and during that time has developed a strong community study group. Later a Workers' Educational Association group was started and so successful was the venture that a drama circle was formed in addition to other classes. The first curtains were made from scrim, and the light was provided by motor-cycle lamps thrown on to the "stage." Interest was great enough in 10:10 to warrant the erection of a community hall capable of seating about 450 people. Discussing the part of the teacher in country activities. Dr. Brunner stated that those in the profession were challenged to give wider service than mere day school time. What was needed was a careful study of the community to discover its real needs and interests. A programme based on such information rarely failed.

TEACHING PARENTS ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE SCHEME IN UNITED STATES "It is very valuable to regard the teacher not as a servant of the State, but as a part-parent of the child," said .Mrs. W. Boyd, wife of Dr. William Hoyd, head of the department of education at Glasgow University, when she spoke at a symposium on parental education in the Technical College Hall yesterday afternoon. She considered that to be a wife and a mother was far more a career than to be a typist, a secretary or even a member of Parliament. Mrs. Boyd referred to the advances which had been made in infant care as the result of modern study of these problems and said better babies were being produced as the result of knowledge and understanding. However, child study appeared to come to a stop when the infant reached an age of about 18 months, which actually was the staye when the real problems began. A fellowship should be encouraged among parents and teachers to consider the questions that inevitably arose, food for children and family relationships being two of many avenues in which profitable discussion might take place The progress of parental education in the United States was outlined by Mrs. F. W. Hart, wife of Dr. Hart, professor of education at the University of California. She said it was an outgrowth of the extension of adult education and of the greater importance which had been attached to the study of children. Psychological research bad shown that the mind did not deteriorate and that even in mature age the individual could go on learning. In the United States, Mrs. Hart explained. all the problems of the child were discussed by the 20 to 30 members of parents' groups. The whole aim was to build up in the children their own possibilities and to make them rclv on themselves?