TUTOR CRITICISES TEACHERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23599, 8 September 1938, Page 14

TUTOR CRITICISES TEACHERS

FALLING INTO GROOVES DAY OF JUDGMENT WHEN ELEVEN (From Oub Own Correspondent) , (By Air Mail) LONDON. Aug. 15. At a session of the City of London Vacation Course in Education, at Bedford College, Mr Frank Roscoe, senior tutor, somewhat severely criticised teachers. ' . • • ' “We teachers,” he said, “tend too much to fall into grooves. The teacher who continues to work automatically and mechanically ought to be shown the door at once. /’ t . ;y‘ “In many schools it is still.almost, a crime for one child to be found helping another. Cannot we encourage helpfulness rather than narrow selfinterest? “ I want us to divest ourselves of the notion that a school is something like a factory. Our schools seem to lack gaietv. and the sooner teachers come to think of teaching as rather a jolly adventure and cease taking themselves too seriously, the better. LOOKING FIERCE “ We attach great importance to discipline. *but we never stop to think what it really is. It is commonly understood to be the power of sitting still and doing as you are told., It_;is thought that anybody can keep discipline if he can look fierce enough, but what is it worth to have children living in dread of you?” Commenting on the type of art found in many schools, Mr Roscoe said he went into one classroom where there were two highly varnished pictures. One was of the .human form, with all the muscles exhibited, and the other the human form with all the internal organs displayed. Finally he had this to say of examinations: "When we consider that «o many children have their whole future determined by an examination' at the age of 11. surely we as teachers ought to say. * No. we cannot consent to have a dress rehearsal of the Day of Judgment at the age of 11.* ” -•