TEACHERS AS PUPILS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19732, 29 December 1926, Page 9

TEACHERS AS PUPILS

CAMBRIDGE SUMMER SCHOOL A NEW MENTAL STIMULUS OVER TWO HUNDRED ENROLLED A teachers’ summer school will be opened at Cambridge by the GovernorGeneral. Sir Charles Fergusson, on January .11. Over 200 teachers, representing secondary, primary and native schools throughout the Dominion, will attend. The organisation is in the hands of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute, of which Mr F. Milner, rector of Waitaki Boys’ High School, is president. The movement is another expression [of the inspiration that is widening the outlook of the teaching profession, the members of which see in it much more than a job, but a lofty vocation, U life’s work, offering great opportunities for service and calling for their best effort. Thus they will gather in large [numbers at a summer school to be held ;in the middle of holidays.

The purpose is not to discuss ways and in.rti.ns of getting children through their examinations. Quite the reverse is the case. The whole course of lectures has been arranged from the cultural standpoint. Opportunity will bo given for hearing the mind of experts on subjects which arc far beyond the range of ordinary school work. The tdaehers will really go to school and devote their minds to studies for which the year affords few, if any opportunities. Many teachers, through isolation or the stress of daily work, are out of touch with university life and have little contact with the minds behind the commercial and industrial machine. This lack the school will endeavour to supply.

‘‘Modern Literature,” “Problems of the Pacific,” “Music and Its Place in Life,” and “Flora and Fauna of New Zealand” are a few of the subjects which will be demit with during the 12 days of the , camp. The syllabus has been so arranged that a teacher may specialise in a particular subject, on which there is a lecture daily, but at the same time certain of these lectures will fit into a general course.

The movement was introduced into New Zealand by Professor Shelley, of Canterbury College, under the auspices of the W.E.A., and a. number of successful schools were held. The Southland Education Institute then followed the Canterbury letad and the initial venture in the North Island was made last year. Cambridge was the centre selected and the interest, there displayed in it, not only by teachers but, also by the residents of the district, to whom lectures were open, attendances of 1000 being recorded ,wtas such that the committee was very glad to again avail itself of the facilities offered by the Cambridge people for this year’s school.

The women will be billeted in the school and the men will live under canvas in the Park. Mornings and evenings will be devoted to lectures, but (afternoons to recreation, for which there will be every facility, all the sports bodies in the town.having offered the use of their grounds to the teachers.

It is intended to arrange trips to the Arapuni hydro-electric works and to the Ruakura State Farm of Instruction.