SCHOOL WORK AND HOBBIES

Southland Times, Issue 23693, 16 December 1938, Page 13

SCHOOL WORK AND HOBBIES

At Bishop’s Stortford College, Hertsfordshire, a scheme of some educational interest to English schools has been launched, known as the “Pioneer Scheme,” writes W. J. Strachan in The Christian Science Monitor. The work in connection with it will enable boys to qualify eventually as “pioneers.” Work is done entirely out of class and is an extension and co-ordination of hobbies, which have always been energetically cultivated at this school. But it is the wish of the present headmaster that the whole*school, and not merely a proportion of it, participate in out-of-school interests, which are predominatingly open air and of a different nature from either stereotyped school games or the ordinary curriculum.

A list of subjects was drawn up from which each boy might make his choice, and standards were devised in each, on the attainment of which a boy would be considered qualified. He would then pass on to other subjects, and having qualified in three or four (the number at present suggested) be considered a “pioneer.” Meantime, he might have selected one subject in which he really desired to specialize. In that case he would be given an opportunity for further work and some part in the instruction of boys at a more elementary stage in the same subject.

Masters interested in the various sections are at present acting as “advisors” and instructors, but gradually these roles will be taken over in part by the senior boys. The following is the list of possible subjects, including those already existing in organized societies: agriculture, archaeology, architecture, beekeeping, botany, campcraft, entomology, geology, ornithology, painting and sketching, photography, pathfinding and touring, surveying, trees, zoology, athletics, manual labour. The two last mentioned need a word of explanation. Athletics is entirely limited to field sports, such as throwing the discus and javelin. The idea behind manual labour is that as many boys as possible should contribute some practical work for the benefit of the community. The work was not inspired by “Arbeitsdienst” in modern Germany; but was put into practice 10 years ago when the school openair swimming bath was excavated by volunteer labour of this sort.

As a result of the “Pioneer Scheme,” the geologists have started a collection of local fossils, the architects have to their credit a working model of a windmill and many carvings of architectural detail in plaster of Paris, the entomologists have bred and reared various species of moths, the archaeologists have made plans of local British camps and begun some digging, the bee-keepers have brought their own honey to the tea-table, the campers have established and made use of a school camp to which parties have gone in relays at each week-end. Perhaps what is more worth recording is that boys have utilized all soi*ts of in-between times for those pursuits, such as sketching and path-finding, in which so much depends on individual initiative. Tire stimulus which has been given to natural history subjects is borne out by the increased number of enterprising walks in free times such as Sunday afternoons.