The Daily News SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1934. NEW MINISTER’S TASK.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1934, Page 6

The Daily News

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1934. NEW MINISTER’S TASK.

OFFICES: NEW PLYMOUTH, Currie Street. STRATFORD, Broadway. HAWERA. High Street. i

The appointment of Mr. S. G. Smith as Minister of Education will be generally welcomed throughout Taranaki. The newly appointed Minister has many problems to face, but he brings to his task the experience of many years’ close association with local school administration, as well as that obtained in his former Ministerial appointment. Like most community efforts the education system of the Dominion is finding it necessary through stress of circumstances to review its standing, and the public is asking also whether the results obtained are all that might be hoped for. Lack of funds has made certain policies essential, at least for the time being. Their effect is becoming more apparent as time goes on, and it is evident that modifications of policy will be necessary if true economy is to be achieved, that is to say, the best possible return obtained for the money expended. In some respects the futility of criticism of specialised work by laymen is obvious, and there can be no more specialised work than that of the teacher. At the same time there is the point of view of the ordinary citizen. Education, in New Zealand at all events, is the provision of a pub-

lie service, and the schools an aggregation of people assembled for a certain practical and limited purpose, That purpose is the provision at public cost of certain things held to be worth to the community the cost of providing them. Schools are not mystic entities any more than sane democratic government is a superhuman association based on the Sacred Egoism of the State or any other political shibboleth. The schools must provide for pupils of both sexes, many ages, varying capacities and assorted temperaments. In such a task there is no room for sloppy idealism, nor must there be undue rigidity of method, and it is only fair to say that New Zealand teachers generally succeed in steering the middle course between these extremes. In the maintenance of discipline and in teaching new methods have been accepted and adopted, and the process still continues. Teachers suffer a heavy amount of inexpert criticism, much of which may reasonably be considered the outcome of unhappy memories rather than sound judgment of the technique of education as it exists. Those who criticise so freely the “lack of respect” displayed by school pupils—a common complaintmight find their views of school discipline undergo a drastic change if they had ever tried to keep order in a large class on a hot afternoon with excitement over some public happening simmering among the pupils. To the layman, while he is willing to- give a cautious and limited defence of the results obtained, the chief weakness in school teaching appears to be the lack of explanations. It is here that the new Minister may be able to assist. For there is nothing so likely to limit opportunity for explanation, of a subject, of a rule, of even the course of work to be undertaken as large classes. To keep classes at a reasonable size, to avoid the constant changes in teaching staffs because of the vagaries of children’s ailments, to give the teaching profession assurance that efficiency will ensure security, and while doing all this to see that the cost is not greater than resources will permit, will be part of Mr. Smith’s new task. Undoubtedly there has been progress made in teaching methods. Such subjects as history and geography are no longer regarded by pupils as a mass of dry detail to be learnt by rote and forgotten as soon as school days end. Yet the idea that lessons are a sort of immutable law of nature seems to persist with a good many pupils who in regard to other matters are quite reasonable—and reasoning—individuals. For them there is the sequence of the schoolroom, the books, the syllabus and the exam., and the greatest of these is the exam.! Teachers themselves agree that it is time the exam, fetish was dethroned, but they have not so far found a substitute test acceptable to all. That, however, is for the science of pedagogy to devise. The point is whether by improving the syllabus, and this by no means infers increasing it, and by wiser administration better results can be obtained. That is the question the new Minister must ask himself. His portfolio is one of the most important—some would say the most important of Cabinet appointments—for the first lessons in citizenship and social practices are given in the schools of the Dominion. There is all the more reason, therefore, that teaching should be by explanation rather than by assertion or text book. Good citizenship is the justification of a national education system, and to reach that aim needs minds trained to think, to know why; conduct is unsociable or good citizenship. For that training of future citizens teachers must have time to explain as well as to impart information.