PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26197, 6 July 1946, Page 8

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

YOUTH IN COMMUNITY NEEDS OF ADOLESCENTS At the monthly meeting on Thursday night of the New Education Fellowship, Mr P. A. Smithells, supervisor of physical education in New Zealand, discussed the urgent problem of physical education for youths. Mr E. Partridge, introducing the speaker, said that he was well qualified to address the meeting on the topic as his work involved visiting schools, both primary and secondary, throughout the country. Mr Smithells said that his address was divided into two sections—a consideration of the raw material and a discussion on the means available for turning the adolescent into a vital adult. He suggested that the periods of greatest growth and development were first, during the pre-school period, and second, throughout adolescence. The adolescent passed through a stage of awkwardness emotionally, psychologically and physically. In the latter case, the apparent clumsy period was due to the fact that the child’s centre of. gravity was changing and control of the muscles had to be reorganised. As a result the child became body conscious and tended to become self-centred.

The adolescent was in need of sympathy and understanding, the speaker said. He drew attention to the fact that educationists believed that every child had a passion for success in something physically, and that teachers should act as recreational guidance officers to see that each child attained the maximum of success. Mr Smithells stressed the fact that physical education .might be regarded as preparing the child for recreational activity and maintained that sport for every child was the ideal. Some secondary schools tended to think in terms of the first eleven, the first fifteens and athletic championships, but there were many games such as American basketball, volley ball and athletic field events which were practically untouched and yet ideal for some boys and girls. Physical education should be given in secondary schools daily if possible or for a minimum of three days a week. Mr Smithells stated that some secondary schools in New Zealand had as many as five physical education specialists on the staff. He emphasised the value of regular tabulation of height, weight, posture, foot condition and various skills. A full knowledge of the child could never be gained, he said, without parent-teacher cooperation. Paper runs, sweet selling at theatre, milk rounds, excessive piano practice and “swotting" often meant that children’s bodies were working 15 hours a day with insufficient rest to allow for bodily repair, to say nothing of growth and development.

Mr Smithells expressed the opinion that children in secondary schools should study by direction the working of the internal organs of animals imd so come to a knowledge of the function of human organs. Regarding sex instruction he stated that the dangers of ignorance were greater than the dangers of knowledge. Sex instruction was a matter primarily for the home, and children's questions should be answered.