EDUCATION WEEK

Southland Times, Issue 18931, 3 May 1923, Page 5

EDUCATION WEEK

EXPERIMENTAL WORK PLEA FOR UNDERSTANDING (By George F. Griffiths). The world has passed through many ages; we read of the Stpne Age, the Bronze Age, The Dark Ages, and many others. In what age are we now? Some will say the Electric Age; others, perhaps, the Age of Air. For thp purpose of this article, we shall say that we live in the Age of Tested Thought “Other periods have thought and thought acutely; but the characteristic features of cur time are found in the tendency to test suggested thought in as objective a fashion as possible, in the accumulation of thought so tested and in the disposition to apply this thought to improving the affairs of man. Our generation is distinguished by the growth of tested thought, and its application to the affairs of men.”

We are in the age of criticism; modern criticism rests largely on the successes of modern science, and modern science enters every phase of lite; therefore we must expect our educational system, for teaching is a science as well as an art, to come under a penetrating criticism, the direct product of which will be’ change. If Tradition is the father of Conservatism, then Science it the mother of conscious questioning, of experimentals and of change lea'ding to progress.

The school that prepares for life must use the * same methods as arc commonly used in life.

This idea is at the back of the many experiments being tried in the educational world.

The Dalton Plan: Experiments in this method have been or are being tried in cur local schools. What is the thought being tested here? The school is "a sociological laboratory where community’ life prevails.” The child’s work under earlier systems was a teacher --super-im-posed one. In the new the child's own will plays a vtry important part in its learning process.

An illustration of a lesson in a school of the past may bring this out clearly: Teacher: What was the effect on the Britons of the invasion of the Romans? Pupil: It had both good and evil results. The Romans taught the Britons how to make roads, build walls, crop the land, make laws, and forced the tribes to live at peace; but in doing this they robbed them of their independence, so that when the Romans left, the Britons were helpless against their enemies.

The methods of the past, the lock-step methods, the do-this, do-that tyjie of teaching did for the children of the past what the Romans did for the Britons, robbed them of their self-dependence, with the result that at every change in their lives they had to lean heavily on some authority. This is the opinion of the secondary teachers on the work in the primary schools, and it is the condemnation hurled by the outside world, the business world, at the finished product of our educational system. The schools have taught much that was good, but have deprived the pupil of its most important factor for creative work—its will.

In the System, an attempt is made to remedy this weakness in the education of a child. It is free to work out its own salvation. The failure of the system will naturally come about if this great point is lost sighf of. Examinations and the ever overhanging dread of results force the hands of teachers —and that force is transferred to the pupils in their change—so that the little people become Britons, building walls and bridges—they know not how or why—doing their duty manfully and as best they can, but all the while losing that creative faculty, the gift of the great Creator, the ‘gift of self-expression, which they will .require so highly developed if they are to .be a success in a world where competition holds sway. The Winnetka System: This plan, like the one above, endeavours to change from the time-system of measuring education to that oF achievement. In the past the time was constant while the achievement of the pupils within these time units varied according to ability. This system makes units of achievement the constant factor varying the time to fit the individual capacity of the child. It aims to remedy three evils. First, no intelligent pupil is forced to acquire idle habits by being kept back with less progressive pupils; second, no pupil who is ahead of his mates is promoted to a higher standard, thus losing much valuable intermediate instruction; third, no mentally slow pupil is asked to leaFn at the rate of his more mentally, alert class-mate. The experimented of this system has analysed the work of schools into the essentials laid down by authority. These are called achievement units, or goals. To reach the. goal practice materials are prepared and the child is left to reach the respective goal at its own rate. But in this system, there are two great advantages not found in the Dalton plan. First: The work is .carefully graded, each goal, and the work required to reach it, being spcciaUy defined. Second: The pupil is given the power to measure its own achievement, to discover its weakness, and to remedy any careless work done. In effect the answer books and specially prepared keys are placed in its hands. What a change! Will it be successful? It is too early to say, but ideas in education must change, and educationalists as well as others may with advantage adopt Ford’s motto, “Nothing is done so well to-day that it cannot be done better to-morrow.” A third method that is arousing great interest in progressive countries overseas is called the Project Method. Pioneers in this method say that men and women who do the constructive progressive work of the world work largely by means of projects. They want to accomplish some concrete unit of work for themselves or for the community. They have a definite purpose, they plan their procedure, they carry out their plans w’ith necessary changes, and they themselves know in what degree they have succeeded in doing the thing they started out to do. In whatever way they succeed or fail they look for the reason in their method of work, and they profit by it in the next project they undertake. This is life’s way. Does the school which prepares for life train pupils in this way? Decidedly not. This is the way—walk ye in it! The pupils’ tasks are teacher-im-posed; the procedure is teacher-planned or proceeds from page to page; the test of their success is the fact examination or thf approval or disapproval of the teacher. They are not conscious of their method. They are conscious in its true sense of their success; neither have they a conscience to govern their actions. Any method that can train a child to use its conscience in its work, and to have a consciousness of i work well done and to know the reason • for success or failure must take precedence j over the methods of the past. The carrying j on of projects is educative in citizenship | because children are constantly called upon i to exercise those qualities that democracy > demands. They must co-operate with the I members of the group. They must be per- | sonally responsible, they must think straight, thej’ must be able to reach conclusions and express opinions, they must use correct methods of work. These are some of the qualities that citizenship demands and which the school must establish. Thus we have at present these three systems being tried out in our most progressive schools. Each is an advance on the work of the other; (1) pupils working independently at work allotted by teacher; (2) pupils accurately assessing the value of the work achieved; (3) pupils planning work to be done, independently carrying the work to a finish and developing ability to pass judgment on that work.

We are in the age of tested thought. He is a cold person who says, “Give me the good old days, with its three R’s well taught, and away with these new fangied ideas.”

Citizens of Invercargill—the call is to you—the people in whom you place the training of your boys and girls are alive to the demands of the times, but are ham-

pered by the lack of funds to initiate the changes that make for more progressive education.

The whole aim of Education Week is to appeal to you to awake to the needs of the schools of to-day, and by your concerted action to see to it that no demand made on the Governments purse is of greater insistence than vours for educational facilities.