SCHOOLS IN RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1932, Page 9

SCHOOLS IN RUSSIA

SOUTHERN TEACHER’S VISIT.

MARKED DIFFERENCE IN METHODS

A Christchurch teacher, Mr. George Ashton, now having a year’s teaching experience in London, writes in an entertaining manner on some of his exneriences in Russia, which. he ■visited during his three weeks’ holiday at Easter. . ’ „ “Schools in Russia,”, he says, ‘are quite different places from those in New Zealand or England. The children bounce out of their seats and interrupt the teacher at any time. J hey all work in groups of about six or eight, and in no room is there ever silence. AVliile we were talking to the head in one factory school, a boy of about 15 camo in without knocking and announced that, as he was the president of the Camera Chib, he proposed taking our'photographs. Next he arranged chairs, told us all where to sit, took the photograph with tho mannei of a professional, thanked us and left. . “Also if vou want to know anything about the ‘Five Year Plan,’ ask a Russian child. He has a mine of information about it in his head, just as a New Zealand boy can tell you the position of the leading- teams in football or cricket. But one of the greatest experiments the Russian schools have made, I think, is in the question of sex education. Boys and girls from 12 are given direct and straightforward knowledge in mixed classes. The teachers claim that with the boys and girls who have been brought up on these lines, there is no ‘sex problem’ at all: This is a big challenge to European educationists.”