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Star (Christchurch), Issue 17995, 4 November 1926, Page 6

Professor Shelley-, in his recently-ex-pressed attitude to homeAvork. has the sympathy of many Wellington school teachers. One of many* years' experience says it is highly essential for every child to learn from its earliest years how to make use of leisure hours. The expressive side of its nature should be allowed to find a free outlet, lie condemned homeAvork "as being unduly repressive, and highly detrimental to the best interests of the child. Lessons should be left behind at the school gate, he said, and not carried into the home. “What children have during school hour* is quite sufficient, if real education and not examining is the goal,” he said. "The parent that wants homework as a means of keeping the family* out of mischief while at home cannot be classed at all as an efficient parent. They* should see that the child’s leisure hours are spent profitably.” A retired head master declared homework “ a useless and iniquitous aurvival of the days when education was a synonym for cramming/’ Too often it was made use of by the laay teacher as a method of aA-oiding the strain of direct teaching. On the other side of the picture a teacher avers that to-day learning is such a pleasure that it is good for the children to have some drudgery.