SPECIAL TRAINING FOR TEACHERS

Te Ao Hou, October 1958, Page 19

SPECIAL TRAINING FOR TEACHERS An in-service training course we held at Ardmore Teachers' College in September last. Those invited had recently been appointed to schools where for the first time in their careers they would be teaching Maoris. It was a windy spring afternoon and 500 young teachers in training were entering the College grounds after the spring vacation. Here and there an obvious stranger felt his way towards the administration building till the whole twenty teachers of the special Maori course, from schools as far apart as Te Hapua and D'Urville Island gathered for the Principal's welcome and the opening session. They were a diverse group from the beginning, but one in their enthusiasm to gain a better knowledge of the cultural heritage of the children they had to teach and of the most effective approach to that teaching. Eight mornings were spent in lectures and vigorous discussion on the teaching of English and its problems, the background of the Maori five year old and infant method, arithmetic in the Maori school, social development and health of the Maori child, a study of the Maori community. Discussion ranged from the infant class to the difficulties encountered at school certificate level. There was much pointed argument. The points of view of the tentative theorist and those of the forthright practitioner were all heard and debated and time was all too short. There were eight afternoons of carving and tukutuku and taniko work. Everyone actually participated in the craft work and took samples of his work away with him. Song and dance and poi and haka all were made real to these teachers at the Maori colleges they visited. And eight afternoons were far too few. The evenings provided intellectual fare that was a challenge to people interested in racial relations and national cultures. And the result of it all was an insistent demand that the same twenty people meet again in the near future. Up till now the Maori people owe a great deal to teachers of the Maori service for keeping alive much in their national culture, from now on their indebtedness will be extended to an ever widening group of teachers in the schools of New Zealand.