SUCCESS IN TEACHING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20784, 20 July 1937, Page 4

SUCCESS IN TEACHING

SMALL CLASSES ESSENTIAL By Telegraph—Press Association DUNEDIN, July 19. Tire opinion that small classes were essential to successful teaching was expressed briefly but very definitely by Mr L. Zllliacus, headmaster of the experimental s-hool at Helsingfors Finland, in a commentary which followed his address on “pupil activity in modern education,” at the New Fellowship conference to-day. “I could not teach classes of 45 and 50 pupils,” he said, “and I feel I cannot speak to teachers who have that responsibility, a.! I can do is to take off my hat to them in silent reverence.”

The speaker quoted extreme examples of dogmatic instruction to Illustrate that in earlier days the characteristics of each child were not studied. Teachers had their own strictly defined ideas and children had to absorb what learning they could within tabulated and narrow confines. Tire change to brighter classrooms and more activity meant a lot of bustle and noise, a good deal of which was no doubt sheer reaction, but it lead to the institution of systems which encouraged children to study for themselves and to take an entirely different Interest in their work. Mr Zllliacus explained some of the working of his own school in Helsingfors and the need lor an ample supply of working materials. Teaching, he thought, was to be found in classes of younger children because there the teachers’ interests were primarily in the children. In classes of older children specialisation in subjects was required of the teachers, with a result that the tendency was for interest to be centralised in the subject with a consequent lessening of attention to individual students.