FRANK CONDEMNATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19377, 15 July 1937, Page 15

FRANK CONDEMNATION

METHODS OF EDUCATION LEADING OF TEACHERS SYSTEM IN DOMINION (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. A frank condemnation of New Zealand methods of education, particularly in respect to the grading of teachers, was expressed to-day by Professor Hart, of California University, in an Educational Fellowship conference address. “It is an utter impossibility to grade teachers numerically and at the same time give the individual teacher fair play,” he said. He criticised the fact that under the existing conditions the inspectors were concerned more with the making of administrative reports which directly affected the teachers’ salaries and promotions. He considered that teachers could not do their best before an inspector when they knew that their promotion depended upon his impression of their work.

Professor Hart urged that in any reorganisation in New Zealand, inspectors should rather be supervisors whose duty it was “to teach the teachers to teach.”

SCHOOL TILL 18 YEARS VARYING CURRICULUM EDUCATIONIST’S IDEAL (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. “I hope that one day every boy and girl will have to stay at school until he or she is 18 years of age,” said Sir Percy Meadon, an eminent English educationist, when addressing school teachers to-day. He added that if this ideal became an actuality he vyould make the break between the primary and secondary phases of education at 13 years of age. “There is no reason why every child should have the same curriculum,” he added. An effort was being made to break down the harrier between schools with an academic curriculum and traditions going hack for centuries and new schools with a realistic curriculum.