SCHOOLS ADOPT SHIPS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19808, 9 December 1938, Page 16

SCHOOLS ADOPT SHIPS

HUMANINISNG GEOGRAPHY

STUDY WITHOUT TEARS

LONDON, Nov. 1. Good work has been clone by the British Ship Adoption Society in "humanising” the teaching of geography. The scheme of the society has been described as “geegrappy without tears.” Its object is tii bring the schools into close touch with ships officers by correspondence, in which the scholars obtain first-hand knowledge of foreign lands and peoples. Beginning with the "adoption” of a ship by each of four London County Council schools a few year; ago, the movement rapidly extended. There are now nearly GOO schools, each with a ship allotted to it, and 200 others waiting for similar facilities to be afforded.

“The trouble is how to find enough suitable ships- to go round,” the secretary of the society states. “The demands of the schools are far in excess of our anticipations.” \ Teachers and ships’ officers alike take the keenest interest in the work. Several captains have reversed the original process by “adopting” their own old schools and presenting silver cups for competition by the scholars.

Some teachers declare that since their schools adopted ships , geography lessons have become the most attractive and exciting task of the day. The movements of their ships are followed with immense interest n the school maps.

Apart from the extensive correspondence carried on between the schoolboys and the officers, who are mostly regarded as “seafaring uncles,” visits are paid to the ships. A development is that of carrying selected boys on sea-trips in holiday time.