THE JANUARY EXAMINATIONS FOR TEACHERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14447, 13 February 1909, Page 3

THE JANUARY EXAMINATIONS FOR TEACHERS.

Sir,—After the examinations for D and C certilicates, held in January last, there was it groat, amount of growling between the candidates, but it seems to mo that any grievances we have will not be rectilied by our growling at- each other. I ask, therefore, the indulgence of a little of your space that. I may set forth our troubles. The reading and practical singing examinations take about 15 minutes each. They are taken while another and written examination is in progress. You have just begun to settle down to a ivritton paper —say " School Method "—when you are interrupted and called away to read. You concentrate all your energies upon the reading, smd are then sent hack to your " School Method" paper. Perhaps you have just settled down again when interruption No. 2 occurs—you are called away to undergo the practical singing test. Some candidates are thus interrupted twice in one paper—otheiw once in each of two papers. This entails settling down three times iti one examination, or hvicc in each of two others. Of course, a half or a quarter of all hour, as the case may be, is allowed extra to those interrupted, but, (his does not compensate for the. loss. It is not the actual lime lost that one minds. At any examination it takes time to settle down sufJicicnt.lv to get anything approximating the best out of oneself. Weil, fancy undergoing this twice or thrice, in one paper! The second and third times of .settling down, too, take .a much longer time than the lirst. After any ordinary written examination one cannot, help calculating one's cliancw of sucocss; but after an examination such as writing or singing, when the test has been individual and the range of consciousness narrowed and inUMinitied, one's ;U't-er-imagcs are most persistent. Why, sometimes the whole ordcaJ irom beginning to end forces itself into your mind in spite of your repellent efforts. Kspocially strong are those portions you have done extra well or ill, and you cannot. help weighing your chances—in fact, they weigh themselves, irrespective of your will. Now. every candidate is more or less nervous, and I submit t.hut. a paper such as "School Method," which requires a maximum of concentrated attention, should not be interrupted in any way. for it is quite impossible for many of the more nervous candidates to calm themselves if their thoughts are thus dislocated. It may be argued that 1.1 lis inability to transfer the mind completely from one subject to another denotes bad mental training, foj which the Education Department is not responsible. May be it is not, but it must make arrangements lor a collection of, not Gladstones, but average individuals. The mention of singing brings another point to mind. In the examination syllabus, under heading " Vocal Music,"' we lind. inter alia, "The writing of one or more simple tunes from memory.'' This gives candidates an alKolutelv unlimited field of choice—no tune whatever is excepted. The singing instructor advises you to learn two tunes, for two are always asked—one in the tonic sol fa, the other in the stall notation. There are not very many Mcndclssohns among the candidates for the C and D euuuiimtions. and students naturally learn the easiest tunes. These arc the National Anthem and the " Old Hundredth." The chagrin of examinees may tie imagined when the singing papers last month demanded the writing of any two tunes oxoept the National Anthem and the " Old Hundredth." I submit, Sir, that this demand is beyond the requirements as set forth in tho syllabus, and is therefore pot a f*ir-om, .If (wy,:tunQ ia

excepted, the syllabus should say so. Next year the department may except some other two tunes, and a candidate will never bo able to feel confident.

' 1. should like to make a few remarks I about the first question of tire school i method paper. This r;uestic,;t required the | making out. of a quarterly return from i nunwrotis and intricate data for poriod : ended 31st. March, ISO 3. The examiner surely 'must have hocm collecting, over Binc-s ho was capable, all the possible asid impossible catches txcvible, to be a little facetious. One would not have minded anything hard and siiviiirht.forward though, if the following bad not appeared casually among the information given: "Tlra school reopened after the holidays on Monday, the 3rd February. The Faster holiday* \wm Friday, the 171 h April, and the following Monday and Tuesday." Headers will perhaps observe, as did very many of the candidates aitor the examination, that the last half of this elation refers to April, which does not fall hi the cptairfcer e:;dirar March 31. This small item of news, inserted evidently by a " smart" examiner for the sole, purpose of tripping candidates up, sliould liave Ixren treated wit.h tlio contempt it deserved. Can you imagine tlie examiner uloating over the large catch of simple and confiding students tint his ingenious decoy had secured? But whether students escaped the snare or not, the fact remains that tlio question was alsohitcly unfair. The aflinned .general purpose of oyery examination is to find 1 out what a student knows, not to trip him up if possible: the specific method of a school method paper is to find out if a student will mi it—formally at least—for a teacher's position. Now, the board insists that every quarterly return must ho forwarded to headquarters within five days of the end of the quartor. If a teacher woro making up his March return, would he put before hiin a memo, that nt Faster, which would, Clcd w-illing, fall a. fortnight hence, the school was shut on Friday, etc? The idea is preposterous, and many a geed student who knows every detail of roll and returns, would be "had" by this "clever" insertion. Candidates, it is fair to say, took upon examiners without suspicion, and their faith is genorally justified. Evidently, however, this oxamincr docs not subscribe to the codo of ethics existent among examiners.

Tlio whole series of examinations wa3 hckl under dark age conditions. If one was not being culled away from a paper oneself, oiio's neighbours wore, ami one liad to concentrate to tho accompaniment of tramping feet and opening and shutting of doors. Bricklayers and Kurpontcrs wore at work on the same buildin<; just outside the window, their systematically-exercised, brazen voices would have penetrated the room from a. further distil nee tjian just outeid l ;. At times, too, their utterances wc-re emphatic rather than polite, and onco at least one of tho supervisors went down to quieten them.

In conclusion, I would sav that an examination, under the most favourable conditions, is very often not, a true lest of a candidate's abilty, but. under such conditone as the "D" and "C" oxamiuatons wore held. I do not. see how it could be called a "test"—at least not of ability. Only per-oris born doaitute of nerveis, or ■hardened old ex&minecs, or those wito had t.li 3 power of concentration to sucli a. decree that they could i» regardless of all these, interruption!! and noises that paralyse tho thinking powers of the aixlinary student, coukl do tlioiireelvcs anything approaching justice. It was a true ewe of tire survival cf the hardest. At tlio recent degree examinations at the University, comliilicns were of the opposite nature: silence reigned

supremo, and even tennis was debarred in the University grounds. Now. in their own sphere the teachers' examinations are finite as important as degree examinations: Why, therefore, do not the same favourable conditions a-ppertain? Students a.ro tricot anxious to do themselves and their training college justice: why should all conditions militate against instead of inducing good work? Why should the environment tend to drive any knowledge one may possess back into the recesses of his mind instead of drawing it out?—l am, etc.. February 10. Mam.