EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN EDUCATION

Wanganui Chronicle, 19 September 1946, Page 4

EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN EDUCATION

SOME PROBLEMS REVIEWED address to rotary club. Educat.on was a subject in which everybody was interested, because its changing standards and problems affected the work of all, Mr. W. E. Fossette, headmaster of the’ Wanganui Intermediate School, told members of the Wanganui Rotary Club during a short lunch hour adaress Tuesday on “Some Problems of Education." Mr. Fossette dealt particularly with problems associated with the development of the abilities of children who for various reasons d ci not learn at the same rate as other members c* a class. Mr. Fossetie said education was something more than just teaching. Education had a number of unsolved problems, and members of Rotary might help solve some of them as employers. “We all have to suffer for other people’s lack of balance and their emotional shortcomings,” ho added. “For that reason education and its problems affects us all. Nine people out of ton are authorities on educa* tion from I.me to time. All of you took a certain course of education which you think was the best possible. “Most of us give credit for our successes to the system of education under which we learned. Therefore, we are inclined to say that spelling and arithmetic are not as good now as they used to be. Cut that view is nothing new. The same comparison has always been made.” Mr. Fossette said that the main thing was to examine the present system and try to see what could be done to Improve it. Teachers were among the keenest critics of the present curriculum. Mr. Fossette saic that it was once thought that when the three essentials or reading, writing. and arithmet c had been taught t ie chief essentials of education had been covered. Then certain (.tlu r subjects had been added, and it was thought that this gave a r.jmplete Gaining jn citizensliii). His ex crlcn.-e. however, Mr. Fos-.etfe .-..<.<1. was that Hie present t in i ciiluni did not gv. uanlee such a training. PLACE OF IMM JDi AL. Mr. Fossette said that one problem was how to give children the opportunity to see where their future lax. And to train them to take their place in communitx lite. But if tcarheis tried Lo develop cadi individual child’s

latent, talents, what would have to be sacrificed from the general curriculum. Mr. Fossette said that it had been proved that continual application to one subject, such as arithmetic did not make a logical general thinker.

Dealing with the breaks in a child’s, educational life, Mr. Fossette said that this necessitated a continual retracing of steps as a child went on to a higher standard. Learning was not a matter of continual progress, and a good deal of repetition was necessary. “Children, and people generally, learn quickest when they use the knowledge acquired as they go along.” Mr. Fossette added. ’’When people have the need 1o learn for the purposes of a job, they learn quickly.” Mr. Fossette said that every school had its problem pupils who had to be specially coached along in certain subjects. They were interests’ in seme things but not in others. *rme did not learn normally because of physical, others because of psychological troubles. Mr. Fossette quoted a number of cases which had come under his notice, and these showed the diversity of problems which teachers—and later, perhaps, employers—had to dea’ with. ‘‘When you think of education, try and think of it in a broader way than in the past,” Mr. Fossette concluded. “We have always to think of education as changing, but to-day we have to remember that it is changing at an accelerated pace.” Mr. A. A. Hendry thanked Mr. Fossette oi behalf of the Rotary Club for his address.