PARENTS' PART IN EDUCATION

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21418, 9 March 1935, Page 14

PARENTS' PART IN EDUCATION

A WELLINGTON CRITICISM OPINIONS IN CIJIUSTCIII'KCn A complain l. that parents were indifferent about the progress of their children once they had entered secondary schools was made recently by Mr F. Martyn Renner, principal of the Rongotai College, Wellington; but headmasters of several secondary schools in Christchurch who were asked to comment on Mr Renner s statements would not agree that this was their experience. Mr Renner said that the failure to understand the true purpose of education, and the inability to discriminate between the real and the meretricious, could be explained by the subsequent apathy of far too many parents once they had handed over their children to a school. It was impossible, lie thought, for a teacher to undertake the training of a child without the help and advice of those nearest and dearest to it. The experience of the principal of the Christchurch Technical College, Dr. D. i'j. Hansen. does not cause him to agree with Mr Renner that parents are apathetic about their children at school. "I have never known it," he said. ''lndeed, I must admit that our own parents are tremendously interested; and 1 imagine that the majority of the parents of pupils at tire day school come to see me, and many come more than once. When we have our annual visiting day and evening I suppose from 500 to 700 come along. "Glad to Respond" "They are always quite prepared to discuss, freely and of their own accord, things connected with their children, and they are more than glad to respond to an individual invitation," Dr. Hansen said. "The wish for a child to be able to earn its own living is, 1 think, more or less natural at present, and I don't think one can take parents to task at all," he declared. "To most people in New Zealand the earning of a living is very important. At the same time I think that parents are interested in (he development- of the; child's ability and realise that he can be improved by a fairly comprehensive course. They agree "that for ail-round development the child must have a very wide course." Dr. Hansen remarked that subjects such as music, drawing, and colour work were taken up wholeheartedly by the children, although such subjects might not have any significance in the earning of a living. Mr Renner was quite right to say that the education of the child was not a matter for teachers alone, he thought. It was a matter for cooperation between parent and teacher, and it must be most disappointing to be in a school where parents did not help. It was not fair to hand a child over wholly to the teacher. Mr Renner's experience has not been that of Mr R. J. Richards, headmaster of Christ's College. While Mr Richards did not wish to discuss Mr Renner's remarks in detail, he said he had not been quite so unfortunate as Mr Renner in the attitude of parents towards pupils at college. "The parents of scholars at Christ's College are more interested than that," he said. A Parent's Powers The opinion that a great fault of th: New Zealand education system was over-centralisation, destroying the possibility of any active enthusiasm among parents of school children, was expressed by Professor J. Shelley, Professor of Educa+ion at Canterbury University College. "The key to the position is that many years ago the Government took over the control of education in New Zealand," he said, "and since then nobody has cared anything about it. "Authority lias become centralised until local committees and the people themselves have no power to do anything. It is not that parents are not interested in the education of their children, but the power to act has been taken from them, and without that there can be no initiative and no sense of responsibility. "It is no use saying, 'Yes, let's be enthusiastic,' when it is not possible to do anything. Immediately people become enthusiastic they naturally look round for something to do." Professor Shelley hinted that as things were at present any attempts • by the parents io co-operate in the education of their children would be resented by many of the teachers.