NOVEL EDUCATION SYSTEM

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1929, Page 11

NOVEL EDUCATION SYSTEM

HOME AND SCHOOL ASSOCIATION

ADDRESS BY MR. J; A. VALENTINE

Mr. J. A. Valentine', 8.A., ex-senior inspector of schools, gave an interesting address at a meeting of the Central School (New Plymouth) Home and School Association last night on what could be attained by the widespread cooperation of the associations in the Dominion. "

- In introducing the speaker, the chairman, Mr. S. G. Smith, M.P., stated Mr. Valentine was well-known in Taranaki and his views on the working of the Home and School Association in England would be of interest.

Mr. Valentine congratulated the parents and the school committee on their initiative in forming the association, which was a sign of the advancing of the times. He considered that if the movement were taken up throughout New Zealand there would be no need for educational commissions. He thought the Minister of Education favoured the movement. They had formed a society of a very fine type. In England, every case of the formation of a branch of the society came because the parents were eager to have their children trained properly.- It was not policy to tell a youngster to “look out, now, when you get to school, the teacher will shake you up.” That gave the children a wrong conception of what school was like, and it frightened them. That policy might have been right in the times past, but now improved systems of education were in vogue.

The speaker was emphatic that repression did not bring out the best in children. Children should never be forced to do anything, but they should be led and the reasons tactfully explained to them. In the average healthy child repression led to an outburst of hooliganism.

THE ENGLISH ASSOCIATION. In England the officers and committees of the Home and School Associations were voluntary with the exception of the controlling secretary, who organised the different branches. Their constitution was formed somewhat on the same lines as the constitution of the Central School Association, but in England they had to go even further, and there was a much wider scope for work. In London a large percentage of the children in the poorer parts came from homes where the parents were low intellectually. The association took an especial interest in this class of child, and had special schools. Its objective was to go further into the child’s life an I make an individual study of what his hands were best adapted for. To this end the teachers did not attempt to push knowledge into the children’s heads, but they put them to many different tasks without concentrating on any set syllabus. It was obvious that that big step was ecessary in New Plymouth, or even m New Zealand, where the type was generally higher.

EDUUCATION OF THE PARENTS. The secretary of the society in London had told Mr. Valentine that “our associations aim to teach the parents the three instruments of education —circumstances, habits a;... ideas.” Uhis was the objective of the movement which originated in London 25 years ago, and these principles and methods were gradually being adopted in the Dominions. But it was through the Home and School Association that most work could be done.

In these schools there was a free system of education, and it was recognised that a child could understand the work in which he took an interest. It was no use drumming knowledge into them, and even in New Z call'd it was found that the “brainy” children at. school did not do as well in life as the children who were so-called “dunces.” of the main objectives of the movement was not to train the children with the sole idea of making money, but to teach how to fill in time usefully. At present the system of education in New Zealand was constricted, but the time was surely coming when the Home and School Association would be the means of bringing this new system into

vogue. Mr. W. L. Wagstaff noted that Mr. Valentine had spoken of the “cut and dried” system of education in New Zealand stopping the new system.. He wondered how. it passed the English education Mr. Valentine stated these schools did not come within the jurisdiction ofwthc Education Board, and were not subject to the half-yearly departmental examinations.- The classes did not exceed 25 pupils in each, and the teachers grad'd them as they thought fit. In these schools there was no repression. The parents contributed- towards the upkeep of the schools, ■-’t he understood that they wore also entitled to some .■grant from the Education Board.