ADULT EDUCATION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 73, 15 January 1947, Page 4

ADULT EDUCATION

[ AMERICAN EXPERIMENT ! Adult education, wearing a pince- ; nez and carrying a brief case of : “significant” books, has gone cul- ■ tural, according to the experts, says » a writer in the Christian Science : Monitor. ; Before the war, some of its sever- ■ est critics insisted that adult educa- . tion was neither adult nor educai tional. Someone even went so far i as to call it “kindergarten mano- . euvres for the big folks.” The mere mention of its name t brought to mind a photo-strip of foreign-born fathers and mothers peering self-consciously above their A-B-C books, of elderly men making odd bits of costume jewellery, or near-adults, splashing elbow-deep in finger paint that enabled them to escape from thinking. Steady Progress From this approach, as a spokesman for New York University recently said, adult education, 1946, has made steady and dignified progress. No longer are its principal activities mere child’s play and. “something constructive to do with one’s hands,” but far more likely something to do with one’s thought processes. For example, some of the new courses which are attracting know-ledge-thirsty citizens, from those with “hazy memories of fourth grade geography to Ph. D’s,” are the following: Reading to thinking, introduction to contemporary society, contemporary economics, public policy, current issues, race problems, modem poetry, great figures in English and American literature, freedom, security, economic planning, world politics,’ current problems, crises, creeds, besides courses in special fields. Students Vary Who goes? A Powers girl who makes a flattering income by posing as a model is taking reading and thinking; also the course in introduction to contemporary society. A policeman formerly without a high school education who has started the long trek towards a degree in law and' is attending Taw school of the division of general education. A discharged Army chaplain, for’merly a Protestant minister, is studying world politics, current problems, and crises, in addition to attending writing courses. In describing the importance of adult education to a' world where making intelligent individual decisions is increasingly necessary, Dean Paul A. McGhee of the Adult Division at N.Y.U. said: “There is no longer any excuse, if there ever was, for classifying adult education under the general heading of ‘hobby’ interests. Sensible hobbies, and there are many, need no defence. But adult education, properly conceived, is of sterner stuff, and few are entitled to feel they do not need it.