Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1949 BACK TO SCHOOL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 47, 28 January 1949, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1949

BACK TO SCHOOL

Next week schools open again. No doubt teachers and pupils will view the near approach of a new year with mixed feelings. One remembers from one’s own childhood that there was always a certain strangeness about the start of a new year. There is that feeling of uncertainty on going on to a new class. What will this year’s teacher be like? Will the more advanced,, work be hard? What sort of football team will we have? Or (in the case of the girls) how will we make out at basketball? Well, the children’s qualms about the teachers are probably cancelled out by the teachers’ qualms about the children. Shall I be able to handle that perfect little demon that Miss X had in her class last year? What psychological problems will this year’s recruits bring into my classroom? Will there be a decent first five-eighth now Joe has gone to work at the grocery store?

But that momentary strangeness will soon pass, and the classes will settle down to their routine with the usual enthusiasm of the very young involved in new experiences.

Looking back, one finds the enthusiasm of one’s own children strange]v in contrast to one’s old reluctance to get back to school work. It used to be a pretty grim business compared with the modern curriculum. Still, one learned—or else.

Probably, as the first term pro • gresses and the children start coming home with classroom gossip there will be the ' usual parental head shakings, accompanied by the time-honoured remarks, “You' youngsters have an easy time of it, I’m sure. It isn’t what it was in our day.”

Then will follow the usual horror stories.

Still, at this distance, those old school days were great days. In fact, some of the sterner angles of the old-time system bring forth nostalgic sighs. In many schools nowadays fighting out differehces of opinion behind the shelter sheds would be looked upon askance by teachers and many pupils This is the age of civilisation. But one cannot help remembering that some of the best friends one made were made after black eyes and bleeding noses had been exchanged in savage combat. Moreover, it saved the teachers a lot of trouble sorting up squabbles. Those were the days when a boy who-rushed/to teacher to tell tales on a playmate was branded a “pimp” by his fellows ; ostracised from decent play-; ground society and usually either caned or seriously admonished by the teacher. In a way there

was a lot to be said for the system. True, there were bullies, as there are today. But they always got their desserts in the long run. All in all, though schooldays had their worries, they were grand days, and the fancied hardships of those far-off days are now amongst their most cherished memories. Let us hope it will be thus with the present generation of youngsters when they see their own sons and daughters take the schoolwards track in years to come.