EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27567, 8 December 1950, Page 8

EDUCATION

Sir,—Your correspondent, “8 8.A.”, ha* seen fit to put in your column a good deal of opinion—his opinion—in which he attempts to damage any respect in which the secondary school teaching profession might be held. In reply, I should like to place before him a few facts which may be more pertinent than his opinions in this discussion, which should never have been raised at all. (1) Nearly all teachers on the staffs of secondary schools have also been through Training College, of us in the days before two years’ training made a teacher. The day of the unqualified teacher is gone. Mr Squeers I, dead. (2) A / teacher with a degree doe* not, if he is wise, stop working and studying when he is capped. (3) A secondary school teacher with a degree but without good teaching ability will find his promotion retarded and is, in extreme cases, in danger of being dismissed. Neither primary nor secondary schools have a monopoly of teaching ability. (4) The subjects in a degree held by a secondary school teacher are usually those which he teaches. We do. not 'go infor ’deadwood" subjects. (5) That ■ the Education Department recognises the value of degrees for primary teachers also is shown bv the fact that rewards in grading marks, and consequently in salary and position, are given to those who obtain degrees or units thereof. (6)J No salesman, however skilful, can sell goods that he does =not keep in stock. Someone ha* to pursue knowledge to the higher stages if senior pupils in secondary schools are to be well taught. (7)' A tradesman desiring to know the length of a piece of timber measures it. Degree, examinations are a recognised method of measuring the intelligence and scholarship of adults. If ** R b.A.” or anyone else thinks that he has intelligence and scholarship that no one has recognised, let, him get it meas Ur i d ’am quite prepared to admit that «« 8 B.A * 9 may on odd occasions . himn the midnight oil?’ We do It often becoming a secondary teacher, I was my c e lf engaged for nine years in primary teaching. I ran my concerts and do to the present day, mjj “ scheme ” and kept my work book, too. I find secondary teaching more concrpntai but I do not need 8 B.A. to tell me which Is the more arduous and exacting.—l am. etc., JNOU