DUTIES SHIRKED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4428, 21 May 1941, Page 6

DUTIES SHIRKED

THE AVERAGE PARENT. EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS. A JOINT RESPONSIBILITY. “It would appear that the average parent to-day is’ shirking his responsibility and placing it on the teacher. The latter certainly has his part to play, but without the co-operation of the home, his work becomes very much more difficult. It seems to have been forgotten that the first and greatest ■of educational institutions is the home.”—This was a charge made by the retiring President of the Otago branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute, Mr L. B. Bradstock, in an address to the annual conference of the branch at Dundein. Mr Bradstock spoke on delinquency and retardation, and he emphasised the importance of the home and the school in checking retardation in education and in assisting children who showed tendencies toward delinquency. “I might go further and say that it is our main work,” he said. “As primary school teachers, we, in conjunction with the home, are responsible for the making or marring of the rising generation. It is our work as teachers to help to curb the alarming increase in the rate of juvenile crime.” HOME AND THE SCHOOL. Turning to the causes of delinquency, Mr Bradstock discussed the two main factors —the home and the school. Undoubtedly the underlying cause was the moral immaturity of children and the fact that they did not receive the training to enable them to withstand the ordinary temptations of the world, temptations that were increasing under the present mode of living, and Mr Bradstock said he felt that in the past insufficient time had been given to training for leisure. “It is comonly stated that delinquency is due to some moral taint which has been inherited,” he continued, “but my experience in dealing with delinquents in a New Zealand reformatory is definitely against that belief. A general characteristic, such an intelligence, may be inherited; but certainly not morality or immorality. No child ever was born good or bad. He comes into the world neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral. His morality has to be achieved, and provided a child receives a good home training and is taught in a right school atmosphere, I hold that this moral training can be given. PARENTAL CONTROL. The first and main cause of child delinquency was lack of parental control. This, in conjunction with > other phases of environment, was the chief cause of retardation in education. It was not confined to the poor. It was found just as often in the homes of the rich, where there was an absence of companionship between parents and children. Too often children were neglected in their first five years, and so the home failed to lay the foundation upon which the primary school later built the complete structure. Mr Bradstock analysed home influences and summed up the weaknesses in a big number of New Zealand homes as: (1) The allowing of too much liberty, (2) the lack of companionship between parent and child, (3j the lack of home amusements, and (4) the lack of interest in the child’s early education. In the attitude of these children in schools, it was important that they should be treated so that they did not lose their self-respect through not experiencing any sense of achievement in school. Achievement should be measured in terms of capacity rather than in terms of a 60 per cent. pass. The formation of good habits and character training in general were greater value than a percentage of marks. “I feel that the recognition of the dull and backward child needs special attention,” Mr Bradstock said, “and the systematic organisation of our schools and classes forms one of the most urgent educational needs of the moment.” REMEDY IN CO-OPERATION. Mr Bradstock spoke of the value of sport and hobby clubs in building character, and said his experience had proved that corporal punishment was no solution of delinquency. The most evident result of providing a cultural education with occupations for leisure was not more than 5 per cent, returned to the path of the transgressor. Unless he were effectively educated in the fullest sense, the dull boy of to-day constituted a menace to the society of to-morrow. “The remedy for retardation is undoubtedly a closer co-operation between home and school and the institution of more special classes,” Mr 'Bradstock said. “In those classes, which should be attached to primary or intermediate schools, the child would have the chance of individual instruction and the opportunity of progressing more or less at his* own rate, and he would maintain his selfrespect by tasting the joy of achievement.” Mr Bradstock made a strong plea for more interest in the educational welfare of the backward child, better conditions for teaching, and more sympathetic treatment from all interested in education.