AN EDUCATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 36

AN EDUCATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

SOME PROBLEMS CANDIDLY DISCUSSED. TEACHING METHODS TABLED AND DISSECTED. WHAT IS TECHNICAL EDUCATION? It was the good fortune or the writer recently to be travelling with three persons interested in education —two Old Pessimists and one Young Optimist. The subject was the recent Teachers’ Conference, but, as will be seen, the verbal combatants, as they wrestled, rolled over quite a, number of educational subjects. " When the present deponent arrived on the scene they were on the subject of school attendance, and the Young Optimist was putting forward, somewhat diffidently, the opinion that, considering the strain put upon them, the scholastic profession were considerably overworked and more considerably under-paid. “Fiddlesticks!” was the exclamation of Pessimist No. 1. Then (appealing to his colleague, and waving an oracular finger), he said: “Do you know this. T have been looking into the question of school attendance for the past year,., and I have found that the schools were' closed for 167 days’ out of the 365. That is to say. that both teachers and children

harassed and overworked section of the community, is it-? Let the teachers compare their work and wages with those of classified Government departments- ■” (No. 1 Pessimist went- on glancing at the Young Optimist to see how he was taking it) —“ Let them take the Post Office and Railway Department, for instance, and they will find that for longer hours of equally response© work ” equally responsible work!” emphasised Pessimist No. 2, seeing that the Young Optimist was getting fidgetty, “ they get considerably less pay, less social consideration, and fewer concessions of every kind." “But” (blurted the Young Optimist, with rising clioler), “ don’t you see this, that a school teacher has to be a specialist, that he has to devote a large slice of his life t£> acquiring special know- . ledge to enable him to become a schoolmaster, and that, therefore, he is entitled to greater consideration than the man whose duties- are to a large extent merely mechanical and ordinary ?” Pessimist- No. 1 had evidently waited for this : “ Yes, that is all very well, and true as far as it goes,” lie responded, “of course lie has a greater know., ledge, he is a specialist and all that, but at whose expense did lie get it? Was it hot at- the expense of the- community ? Therefore, does lie not owe the community something in return?" , The Young Optimist- was going, on to say something about- “ begging the question,” when Pessimist No. 2 stepped in. “I hear a great deal,” he said, “about this specialisation and this superior knowledge, but- you will excuse me for saying that 1 think that our schoolmasters are under a not unnatural hallucination in that respect. For, after all, the majority of them hold nothing better than a D certificate, and what is that to boast of?” * ' “Nothing!” said No. 1, with great emphasis; “absolutely nothing. It amounts to this.. The teachers ar© beginning to take themselves with intense seriousness, and they want parents o committees and boards to do likewise, but I am satisfied of this : The whole system wants reorganising, We are forgetting that the proper basis* of our primary system is to educate in primary suejects. But the fact is that while we have a number on schools doing fairly good work we have a great many which are not, and yet to hear the- teachers talk in conference you would think they had reached the Ultima Thule, whereas the fact is some of them have not mastered the first rudiments. Take the subject of handwriting, for instance —an important subject,which it is essential should be well taught, not to produce fine writers,, but ready winders, who can write plainly. If you want to sc© if that subject is being taught efficiently, call for an exhibition of teachers’ writing, and see what they will produce!”. v I consider your remarks very harsh,” interpolated the Yeung Optimist, as soon as he could get a word in, “'because it does- not follow that a teacher who writes a loose hand in a business communication is not capable of copybook ca-ligraphy if he is put to it in class ; and don’t you know this, 'that some of our greatest geniuses have been our worst writers ?” he queried, with a kind of triumphant ring in his voice. “We are not talking about geniuses; we are referring to plain, everyday mat-ter-of-fact business men andl svomen,” said Pessimist No. 2 firmly and seriously, “and I maintain this, that a schoolmaster wrongs himself and his pupils if he is slovenly in his methods or appearance 4® either in school or out.” “Then again, there is another thing for which the Education Boards are largely responsible," ejaculated Pessimist No. 1. “and that is the manner in. which pupil teachers are selected. There seems to be an impression abroad that the pupil teachers’ positions m ; ust be given to the democratic poor man’s child, and when a* young mail or woman pomes along especially well equipped it is taken, as presumptive evidence that he or she is not a poor man’s child, consequently good selections' are not always made. * That is the local experience at any rate. The consequence is that & many of cur pupil teachers are of poor capacity. That is why so many of our school children speak in a sort of modified Cockney twang.” “That is entirely the fault of their parents,” asserted the Yeung Optimist liotlv. “It is-born in them, and you can’t teach it out." “My dear boy!” said the First Pessimist kindly. “Cannot is a word which should be erased from the education vocabularlv. and then my friend and myself would have less reason to complain. N 0... doubt the problem of correct pronunciation is a difficult one, and home habits to a large extent are ineradicable, but where you have teachers who combine character with sound knowledge there, as a general rule, you have- schools which stand out distinguishable for the character and knowledge of their pupils. If, on the other hand, you have pupil teachers who say £ neow’ and ‘ceow,’ the fault will become more pronounced amongst their more ignorant pupils, and it will even find root Smongst those children of superior home training.” “What we have got to lay stress on/’ said the Second Pessimist, “is this, the first function of primary schools should he to educate in primary subjects. If you attempt to teacli too much—-if you are going to circumscribe the time usually devoted to primary education, so as

what I call handicraft —then you are going to do great harm to your children m one direction without benefiting them in the other. It takes five, six, or seven years to give an ordinary child a thorough grounding of primary education, and yet here we have our Government, our Education Board;, our teachers and cur parents all clamouring and agitating for the introduction of so-called technical education into the syllabus. If this is done something must be sacrificed. The result will be that, instead of being soundly,educated, the children will get a. lip-smattering of nearly every subject udder the sun, and a thorough knowledge of nothing at all. I say that there is no need for a diffusion of knowledge in this way. "Let the children receive their primary education, unadulterated. They have all their lives to pursue technical studies, and in their mamre years they Avill have a much better knowledge of those things that they can profitably pursue than they can possibly have .when they are children in pinafores.” : ‘You say, then, that primary education should come first, and secondary educa_ tion follow after?” queried the Young Op- fcimist. “ Yes, that is exactly - the position. Tile- process in Germany is this : A child passes through his primary course, and then goes to a secondary school. If his bent is for technical education, he goes in for technical studies, and when eventually he is able to produce a pass certificate in these subjects, he is admitted to a polytechnique, which is equivalent to a University, and goes through • a course-of study and training which, fits him to become a chemist to a manufacturer. or an expert in any branch of industry to which he may become attached. That is the only right method.’ 7 i£ I do believe this,” said the First Pessimist. “ that drawing should be a feature of all primary education. Drawing is a. thing everybody finds useful, it gives the boy or girl another sense—the sense of expressing ideas in lines as well as in words.” * “We are starting in the wrong direction here in New Zealand,” said the Sec- '■ pud Pessimist,” and we are going to waste a. lot of money. Technical education as we have' it is a misnomer. „ It is only under competitive conditions that you can teach a trade or produce a tradesman. It is only by putting a boy in a workshop that you can teach a boy those hundreds of things, simple in themselves, essential that he should know, not definable in a schedule, yet all going to make the difference between a competent and an incompetent'workman. You want to, have a technical school similar to that in Wellington for continuation purposes only, so that young men and women can study under the best conditions —after work- | ing hours —the theory as 'well as the practice of their trade or handicraft. It grieves me to think that at- present the whole question is being approached haphazard by the Government Department responsible for the advancement of tech_ nieal education. Comparatively incompetent inspectors are being appointed to overlook the incompetent teaching of children by incompetent masters and mistresses to, as I said before, the sacrifice of primary education.” “The fact is,” declared Pessimist No. 1, “that you really want your workman to have manual dexterity, and your overseer- a specialist’s training. Practical training can only be obtained in the ’workshop and the extension school, and specialist knowledge in the laboratories of a University.. Therefore, it is necessary that when we make appointments of inspectors and overseers, we should enact that none but specialists need apply. By any other, system you. bring about a diffusion of knowledge instead of exact and accurate information on “he special subject or subjects of which each student should make a special study in accordance with his bent.” The Young Optimist, was silent.