TAUGHT BY POST

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6520, 16 September 1924, Page 5

TAUGHT BY POST

o THE BACKBLOCKS CHILDREN APPRECIATIVE PARENTS WISTFUL CHILD LETTERS Nearly 500 children in the backblocks are now being educated by post by the Departmental correspondence school staff in Wellington. After tAVO years the system is showing such excellent results that it is expected the scheme will shortly be considerably extended. It is sometimes said that owing to the better distribution of the population of Netv Zealand, there are no real baclcblocks as there are in a country of wide spaces like Australia. It may come, therefore, as a surprise to some to knoAV that there are people living in New Zealand Avhose homes are as far distant as 80 miles from the nearest school. SUCCESS OF THE SCHEME Tavo years ago the GoA y ernment of Ncav Zealand set up the correspondence school to meet the needs of children out back, who might never get an opportunity of being educated except from the tutoring they might get from their parents. To-day the correspondence school is regarded by the Minister as one of the most important developments of his Department. The letters the Minister has received from grateful parents arc sufficient indication of the care and attention bestoAA r ed on these children. By means of the instruction given pupils are eA'en uoav beginning to attend high schools Avho had previously never entered a school gr met a teacher. The methods employed in teaching the backblock children by post may be discovered by spending an hour in the unpretentious dAvelling on The Terrace at Wellington, where the supervisor (Mr S. M. Mills) and his small staff of four teachers are located. In Mr Mills, the Department *lxas an officer Avhose ideal is “to get on the inside” of his far off pupils to find-out all Avhat they think, say and do in their daily round of work and life in the bush. Once “on the inside” he becomes their friend rather than their mentor and then the rest is easy. A SIMPLE SYSTEM The story of the system is quickly told, and is delightfully simple. The subjects taught are elementary ones, viz., arithmetic and Geography, history, civics, draAving and English, the study of which comprises reading, recitation, Avriting, spelling, composition and grammar. Each pupil is required to send in fortnightly for correction answers to questions contained in a circular, two sums in arithmetic, a piece of transcription and two draAvings. Accompanying their replies is a certificate, from the mother, that the work is that of the pupil exclusively, there is-a half-yearly examination and at the end of the year the pupils are classified as to the standard they will be in for the coming year. At that time each pupil gets a schedule of marks obtained by everyone in the standard, although the only name actually mentioned in the schedule is that of the pupil to AA'hom the results are sent. By this means he or she is able to see hoAV the Avork of the year compares Avith that of others of the standard. It Avould never do, hoAVCver, to let Tommy BroAvn, of Cape Runaway, knoAV hoAV his Avork compared with George Smithson, of a neighbouring settlement across the Raukamara Range. They are all of the one school practically but there must not be jealousy amongst them. APPRECIATIVE PARENTS There is much human interest in the letters of the mothers of the backblocks children, especially those suffering from infantile paralysis. “I knoAV one thing,” says a mother, “and that is that beforql they took your correspondence classes , their minds were too Aveary before from travelling long distances to school to be able to learn. They have made more progress in tAvo months than they would have made in tAVo years at school.,, I don’t think children arc fit for heaAry travel on the roads, especially in winter, until they are 7 or eight years of age.” “You don’t knoAV Avhat a boon it has been to my boy,” AArrites another. “He would never be able to attend school for half his time, and could not get much attention from me, as I have to do outside Avork. He has noAv a chance to grow stronger as he groAvs older. Your course is cultivating in him self-reliance and he feels so big and proud about it, especially when he Avrites to you and does things for you. He says he Avill be a proper big boy AA’hen he gets to standard I. He is my only son.”

“I hope all other parents fin<) it the God-ser.d I do,” says a settler’s wify at Ei’ua.” “My children are iioav able to take their place Avith other children,” AATites a mother from Terapititi. FOR NOVELISTS AND AUTHORS There are themes for novelists and authors in the letters. The children Avrite to Mr Mills aixd his assistants under Avhose immediate care they may be. From beyond Ruatora in the Poverty Bay district, a girl of 10 years Avrites: “Sometimes I have to go to the toAvnship 9 miles aAvay, perhaps, Mum has a big Avash and I help her to get the dinner. The kitchen is the schoolroom but Avhen it is too hot I go to my bedroom and Avrite at th : little table there. Again I get tAvo o • three scraps of paper and Igo to my hammock under the pines Where there is ahvays a cool breeze. As I writ ? this, the breeze is rushing tlirougu the heavy pine branches and the sound is like the outgoing tide on a shingly beach; overhead a thrush i; teaching her babies to sing and fly, and I find it hard not to Avatch then'. » History and geography I do not like, because I have a bad memory and 1 get muddled betAveen Thomas Moore and Thomas Cromwell. I haA r e no trouble draAving trees or flowers, but Avhen it comes to straight things like Avatering cans I am all out.” A letter received only, recently from a boy in Palmerston South district giA'es an interesting account of how he spends his time. “I rise at 5.00 in the morning,” he says, “I like most of the Avork of mustering and drafting the sheep. When the shearing !■: on I have a good time because I work in the shed with the shearers and fetch and carry the fleeces to the sorting table. I enjoy helping to haul the bales of avool into the loft.” Another, asked Ixoav many nests he has in his care, lists them: “Thrush, blackbird, kingfisher, fantail, lark and paradis6 duclci” It is not claimed that teaching by correspondence has any virtues that the school has not, but it meets a need in the remotest corners of our sparsely settled country districts, and most of us will willingly echo-the sentiments of the mountain teacher. “Hats off to the correspondence school.”