SCHOOL METHODS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17177, 29 October 1926, Page 7

SCHOOL METHODS

SEVERELY CASTIGATED FATIGUE FROM OVERWORK (Special to the Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. Present-day educational methods were castigated by Professor J. Shelley and Dr. Douglas Anderson at a meeting of parents at the National Educational Union. Professor Shelley, dealing with the subject of "fatigue from overwork-," slated that towards the end of the war the British Government, with the object Qf increasing the output in munition factories in England abolished overtime. Greater efficiency was obtained through the elimination of Tatigue. Industrial psychology had now become a science, and was recognised as a power for good in the manufacturing world. Unfortunately, school children did not. come under the same wise provision, and girls and boys were regularly fatigued at school, to the detriment of their bodily and mental health.

Fully 20 per cent, of the children during their first year at school increased neither in weight nor height. Athletics could be grouped with .mathematics as a first cause of fatigue, in children. The examination fetish should be abolished, and the individuality of the child given more scope for development. If homework were done away with the child would have more leisure for creative effort, and the expression of the- individual would be more concrete.

After the period was past many children were at a loss, and did not know how to employ their time. They were not educated at all. This was a strong indictment of modern educational method, but the results showed that .neither the creative nor the expressive side of the children's natures had been cultivated. Dr. Douglas Anderson gave examples of children who- were overworked, particularly in the matter of home work. Many such eases had come under his notice.