SCHOOL AND HOME.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 8

SCHOOL AND HOME.

HOME LESSONS DEFENDED." ;V4 (To the Editor.) There is a great deal of sentimentality' Jn-V:! the ery for the abolition of homework. It - arises, very often, from people who,have had V to work hard themselves and .who now have' the dangerous idea that it is their '< and duty to make things soft for their child- ' ren. It arises, too, from popple who conceive ■: education as a pumping-in process, and conclude " ' that the hours' for pumping should he from'- " nine until three. It is true that some teachers '•' u< support the abolition of homework, but in mv •-' opinion they are not the best teachers, but':- " teachers of the "hammer-it-in" variety, :: Teachers whose aim is to stimulate ; the -pupiiy " own mental processes know that their efforts are in vain without the complementary efforts -V of the pupil. And when is the pupil to do'; his part if not at home after school hours! How can any teacher with a, class of, say, fifty '■■■ pupils be expected so to elucidate every-point ■"'•"> in every lesson that every pupil will grasp it; : Such an achievement would be possible if ,7V every one of the fifty had a mental capacity '% equal to that of the others, and if every one ' gave the teacher all his attention. Even if -' that impossible condition were granted,-it is ' by no means certain that the lesson would s--be remembered. Everyone who has studied for - examinations knows that in "revising , one v .finds that the points which seemed so easy.'■'-•• and so clear when the teacher made them are '' the very ones that one has forgotten. On ■' the other hand, the points that one had to ■ L work for painfully after the lesson stick in "- ■ the memory. There is yet another aspect of ?'£ the "no-homework" agitation. What do the J children, relieved of homework, do with their ••■•"■'• evenings? EX-HIGH SCHOOL. V:'.-