LONG TEACHING CAREER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 300, 18 December 1937, Page 8

LONG TEACHING CAREER

HEADMISTRESS RETIRES MEMORIES OF MINING TOWN "THIRTY YEARS AT SCHOOL" On the eve of her retirement, Miss E. N. Sampson, headmistress of the Keith Street Infants’ School, looks back over a career that has been both interesting and varied. After 20 years in the teaching profession she has acquired a sound philosophy of life, and also a remarkable insight into human nature. “Handling a staff of teachers, no matter how tractable they may be, requires a wealth of tact, let alone the understanding and diplomacy that is needed to deal with hundreds of children and their parents,” said Miss Sampson, when approached by a “Chronicle” reporter yesterday to recount some of her experiences. Coming from Reefton, on the West Coast, Miss Sampson attended training college in 1908. Completing her course at the college she was sent to teach at a small mining township named Roa, on the West Coast. Conditions were not of the best and Miss Sampson recalls the many trials and difficulties which she encountered as a young woman at this stage of her career. Strikes and similar upsets were common, and handling the miners’ children by herself (she was the sole teacher) was no easy task. Roa was what could be called a “canvas town,” for, save for a few buildings, it was composed, for the most part, of tents. There were several stores built of timber and iron, but it was a typical mining centre and iike most was not very substantial. Miss Sampson’s residence was a whare, which she occupied on her i own.

From there she was transferred to a place named Makowhai, on the Foxton Road. She was at this school a short time before her removal to Waverley, where she took over her first infant mistresship. Her ability for this kind of work soon became evident, and she took up work at the Central Infants’ School, Ingestre Street, Wanganui. This building has since been occupied by the Wanganui Technical College.

Miss Sampson was then transferred to the Keith Street Infants’ School, and was there, under Miss O’Brien, for several years. This was in 1920 when there was a general move on the part of educationalists toward the “new era” of teaching and miss Sampson was one of the first advocates of the new methods. She was approached by the late Mr. F. Stuckey (then senior inspector at Wanganui) with the suggestion that she should supervise a model school at Queen s Park, and this she agreed to do. New schemes were put under way, and she instituted the “Montessori” plan for the instruction of small children. Under this system the children were allowed nyare lattitude in the school, with the object of providing for

greater self-expression. Older children were taught under the "Dalton” system, in which the pupils were given definite assignments of work to complete. When the model school had to be abondoned, largely because of lack of accommodation, Miss Sampson went back again to Keith Street as headmistress and was fully occupied with the handling of large classes, and consequently could not apply the new systems there. Taking an active part in education affairs, Miss Sampson has twice been president of the Wanganui Teachers' Institute. The general knowledge she has acquired through years of teaching and general observation is a wide one, and her ideas of educational methods are extensive. She has taught pupils of all ages, ranging from four-year-olds to adults, the latter when she lectured on economics at the Workers’ Educational Association. For a number of years Miss Sampson took pupils on post-profici-ency courses. “Of the thousands of children who have* passed through classes under my control I remember the names of but a few,” she said, “but their faces are familiar, and it is in this way that I remember them years after they have left slates and desks for the more serious things of life.” Doubtless Miss Sampson, on her well earned retirement, will look back in after years and remember that the service of the teacher is truly expressed in the motto of Lie Keith Street School, where she accomplished so much for the rising generation —“Others!”