EDUCATIONAL.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1420, 25 October 1923, Page 4

EDUCATIONAL.

THOUGHTS ON DISCIPLINE. MODERN METHODS. I (By Spenceley Walker, 8.A.) In no department of education has there been such a change as in methods of discipline. The old idea that children should be forced to sit up straight with their arms behind them while the teacher takes the lesson is now rightly looked upon as torture to the children to little educational value. A child is naturally active, and finds the greatest pleasure in doing things. The wise .teacher makes use of the love of movement, especially in the lower classes, so the aim is to have every child taking an active part in the lesson. A well-known story illustrates the futility of imagining that because a child is watching tlhe speaker he is attending to what is being said and done. An American lady teacher of great reputation visited a class in which was a boy who was reported as being incorrigibly inattentive and restless. During the exhibition lesson that the lady took, the boy's eyes were glued on her face, and he was apparently drinking in all that she said. At the end she quietly asked the boy what she had been speaking about. His answer was: "Please, miss, I don't know; but your top jaw never moved' once all the time you were talking." Needless to say, the lady, though intoresti ed in the reply, was not flattered by ! the result. Despite the opinion of : many people to the contrary, children ; are not naturally bad or mischievous. ' These faults are often due to the children's environment, among which i must be reckoned the attitude of the J parents and teachers. Constant nag- | ging gets on the nerves of a child, and i it causes a kind of pleasure to Irn to annoy and irritate those who indulge ! in it. Constant appeals to a child "to be good" are equally futile, bei oause it usually means to him sitting ; still and doing nothing else-which |is unnatural in a growing child. We 1 may just as well expect a lamb not i to gambol as a normally healthy child j to remain still for any length of time. | What we understand by mischievous- ! ness or bad behaviour is merely misI directed energy. Mischievousness is ' often simply the manifestation of the ! curiousity of the child. He wants to I see tlhe " wheels go round," and apparently wantonly destroys things in | the process. Cruelty is often due to : this also, and to the fact that he is realising himself as one of the " lords I of creation," with a wonderful power : of life and death over lesser creatures. Under proper conditions this is mere- , ly a phase of the child's development j and does not become a habit. It is evident that to force children j by fear to be good is really repress- ; ing a natural process. It tends to I make them cowardly and actually | cruel, so that to give pain to helpless i creatures becomes a pleasure. Thus | the evil is accentuated instead .fof ! being cured, and waywardness and i bad behaviour .become a habit. On i the other hand, a thoughtful parent | or teacher, realising that bad behaviI our is misdirected energy, tries to I find the natural outlet for it. This is | usually to be found in play. It is a i wise and happy father who can give j a little time every evening to romp j with his children, or who can enjoy ! a game of " grab," " tiddleywinks," or j and other pastimes dear to the childI ish mind. He will find the managej merit of his family a very simple af- ! fair, and he will get his recompense j in the love and respect they give I him. This thought, too, shows the neces- : sity for ample playing areas around I the schools. It is in the playground j much more than in the schools that characters are formed. A game of 1 football or basketball, properly con- | trolled and earnestly played, contains 1 a moral lesson more potent than the 1 most brilliant lecture upon ethics. The I child is getting rid of his superabundant energy in a natural way, and consequently jhlas no inclination; to misbehave himself. Thus the habit of play engenders a habit of correct I behaviour. Character has been well ! defined as a bundle of habits. Such a policy results in the production in school of children with the best characters self-reliant, self-controlled, and well behaved. Another outlet for the energy of the child is found in the proper pursuit of a hobby. A normal child passes through various phases of development, each with its particular hobby. The imaginative or fairy stage of very young children is a case in point. What a wonderful place the world is to them, with a gnome or fairy under every leaf and in every flower! Yet some parents and teachers try to repress the childish imagination by pooh-poohing the idea of fairies and such folk. Then they wonder why their children are j irritable, fretful, and difficult to manage. A wise guardian tries to enter this fairy realm with the child, and by pictures and stories helps to prolong this beautiful period. Happy indeed is such an one if he can catch even a glimpse of the wonderful and beautiful world in which a child moves.

To write of each phase of development would take too long, but they are generally well marked, and to an earnest student are not only interesting but of the greatest importance in education. Almost everyone has passed through the phase during •which the collection of things—such as stamps, birds' eggs, or buttonsbecomes an all-absorbing pursuit. A child so engrossed has no time and inclination to misbehave. Yet some parents throw out. these collections of rubbish, and look upon the child as wasting time, whereas a little encouragement and sympathy would have had a wonderfully beneficial effect. It is in this respect that ou,r present system of education is lacking. The syllabus needs re-casting and greater provision made for the dealing with subjects that are in conformity with the various phases of development of the child. At present we have to teach much that is quite out of touch of the child's experience and natural inclinations. The Minister of Education has promised a revision of the syllabus, and if a wide choice is given to teachers, so that they can suit the

varying inclinations of the with the attendant hobbies, the matter of discipline will become veijy much simpler.