Opening classrooms to the fresh air was 1920s’ battlecry

Press, 1 July 1983, Page 14

Opening classrooms to the fresh air was 1920s’ battlecry

By

KEN COATES

Almost forgotten and looking not unlike one of the wooden bungalows New Zealand Railways once provided for station masters at whistle-stop sidings, is a small unoccupied building at Fendalton Primary School. It is one of the school’s once famous six original open-air classrooms which more than half a century ago were promoted with vigour and enormous fervour, and copied elsewhere in Canterbury with enthusiasm.

A crusading Open Air Schools’ League saw Christchurch helping to lead the world in fresh air, sunshine, exercise, nature, and cleanliness in education. Paradoxically, in a country which now takes full advantage of its fresh air and sunshine, there was a time when light, airy classrooms, large (opening) windows, and folding or sliding doors were a revolutionary innovation. The Fendalton classroom, a direct link with a radical change in attitudes, is now to be moved to a Christchurch Teachers’ College site and preserved as an education museum.

The Fendalton complex was described in 1925 in London’s the “Spectator” (a result of the Open Air Schools’ League far-flung propaganda) as a village of little bungalow classrooms turned to catch the sun and avoid prevailing winds, each fitted with sliding doors so it could be thrown open.

“This enables children to have a run at the end of each half-hour’s lesson, stretching tired muscles and

straightening little backs, quickening listless lungs, and toning up the circulation so that the next lesson may be tackled with new energy. “The old shut-in imprisoned feeling is done away with by the open side.”

The “Spectator” added: “After all, what shall it profit a child if he gain the whole curriculum and lose his health.”

Primary schools in New Zealand in Victorian times were mostly replicas of the grim stone and brick prisons of Britain. Few of the windows opened, and were narrow and high in the wall. Schoolmasters did not entertain the idea of allowing pupils to gaze out a window any more than they thought of sparing the rod. Wooden school buildings built in the early part of the century werd 1 not much of an improvement; they were poorly ventilated and gloomy. Britain, with its grinding poverty and slum housing of the grimy, overcrowded industrial cities, had too many sickly children with malnutrition, chronic chest problems, and tuberculosis. There was no such excuse for health problems among New Zealand children.

In 1907, the London County Council started its first open-air school for anaemic, debilitated, and pretubercular children, and in 1908, the United States followed suit.

New Zealand then began to look more closely at the health of its

school-age children. In 1914, after a report by Dr Eleanor Baker, an experimental open-air classroom was built in Timaru to her design. About this time the poor health of some Auckland children led to calls for an open-air school. Of 1135 children examined, .here were 50 whose physical condition meant that in an ordinary school they ran the risk of becoming permanently handicapped. Dr Elizabeth Macdonald, in advising an open-air school, said there was no other way of securing the physical and educational welfare of these children.

During 1916, the Education Department made investigations into plans, details of construction, and equipment of open-air classes in England, Canada, and the United States.

A “pavilion” classroom was built at Tauranga in 1917, the first of the open-air type constructed in the Auckland province. In the same year, Mr G. F. Allen, head of Sumner School, began a campaign for a new fresh-air school. He and his teachers were struggling with large classes (he taught 66) in cramped, badly lit, and poorly ventilated rooms. During a money-raising programme he told local people that medical inspection of New Zealand children had revealed “startling weaknesses.” Experts agreed more should be done to secure open-air

classes. In 1919, the new building, with all rooms opening onto a veranda and plenty of windows, was officially opened. Although called a fresh-air school the building merely had verandas where classes could sometimes be held, and more windows and ventilation than usual.

Not all New Zealand experiments with open-air schools were successful. A project undertaken by the Wellington Education Board at South Wellington School was a disaster because of exposure to the prevailing winds of the site chosen by the medical officer.

In 1924, the Open Air School League was formed in Christchurch. Backed by an impressive list of worthies, the leading lights were Professor J. Shelley, who held the education chair at Canterbury College, and the schools’ health officer, Dr Richard Phillips. The league even began publication of a 30-page quarterly magazine called “The Open Air Life.” Professor Shelley urged: “We must get out of the idea that the schoolroom is four walls built round a lot of desks. We must educate our teachers to the openair idea.” He talked of "the blue dome” of Christchurch air, and added that low temperature was not so bad as long as there was movement. According to the centennial booklet of Fendalton School published in 1975, the then headmaster, Mr Ray Blank, (of golfing, sporting, and entreprenurial fame), guaranteed one hundred pounds towards

the cost of the first open-air classroom. He was not called on to stump up the money for on July 26, 1924, the first new open-air classroom was opened. The cost was £4ll 10s, of which the Christchurch Rotary Club provided £2OO and the rest came from the public. Today, the single classroom buildings with one side that could be opened, look quaint and eccentric. In the first that were built, even the windows in the sliding doors were high, presumably so the children could not look out.

The emphasis was on fresh air without draughts, but the rooms must have been bitterly cold in winter.

An illustrated booklet publicising “The New Zealand Open-Air School” sent all over the world, says each classroom was provided with a fireplace, but a run between lessons provides the best means of “central heating.” The first experimental bungalow classroom was pronounced a thumping success. It had an enormous advantage for the education authorities in that it was relatively cheap to build — less than half of the average school-building costs of the time.

There were many old, outdated schools in Canterbury urgently in need of replacement. The tireless and versatile Ray Blank was an effective publicist and six open-air classrooms were built at Fendalton.

Mr Blank had already had experience of classes in fresh air. He

was teaching at Addington in 1909 when the school burned down. He taught pupils for months in classes held in marquees while a new school was built.

The Open Air Schools’ League continued to preach the gospel. Its journal even had a piece on the effect on monkeys in London Zoo of fresh air, sunlight, and ultra-violet lights in a new monkey house. “Monkeys which were dull and apparently unhappy, moping and often shivery, are bright, lively and have increased appetites.” The open-air movement was in contrast to the repressive ideas of the Victorians who shut themselves away from the sunshine and considered the night air poisonous. There was, undoubtedly, a puritanical zeal about the fresh air fanatics. One school medical officer urged “that children might be taught to assist in the cleansing of their classrooms,” as a means of raising eventually the standard of cleanliness in the home. Another fresh-air fiend in Lancashire, which had many old, poorly heated and ventilated schools, urged: “Every half-hour work should be stopped, all doors and windows opened for two minutes, and arm exercises and deep breathing exercises performed by the children standing in their places. “In this manner during inclement weather the air of the classroom can be changed in two minutes without the surfaces be-

coming chilled.” The Open Air League was not above blowing its own trumpet. “When New Zealand has a bright idea, the United Kingdom sits up and takes notice. Hastings (England) is much interested in the open-air schools’ movement in New Zealand.”

The journal reprinted several letters from authorities in Hastings who had read a 12-page booklet on open-air schools in New Zealand, published and printed by the Christchurch Press Company. The principles of open-air education were stated as “fresh air, sunshine, proper feeding, personal cleanliness, healthy teeth, sufficient rest, and exercise.”

The journal said: “By taking as many classes as possible out of doors, and by making the air in the classroom approximate, as far as possible, the outside air, we remove one of the most injurious conditions of schooling.” The Fendalton open-air classrooms were seen as being ideally sited in gardens and shrubs, and children were organised into school gardening. Tables and chairs replaced the old iron-frame dual desks. Eventually the north side of the old Fendalton School was opened to the playground by sliding doors. In 1925, open-air classrooms were opened at both Linwood and Cashmere schools. By 1929, there were 27 in use throughout the country, though most were modifi-

cations of the Fendalton prototype. Open-air schools were reported in Germany as early as 1912, where a systematic system of medical examinations showed many children in large towns were not learning because of “impaired vitality due to defective frame, improper feeding, and unfavourable surroundings.” School buildings of portable sections were developed and used throughout the Continent and in some parts of England. In Berlin, there was a portable “Doecker” school of 22 classrooms. Mr Cliff Wright, retired director of primary programmes at Christchurch Teachers’ College, says the Fendalton open-air classroom is unique and historically significant. It will be used to house a fully catalogued collection of old school textbooks, certificates, and photographs begun at the teachers’ college in the early 19605. He makes a plea for early desks and teaching apparatus, even straps. One elderly woman sent a collection of all the items she made at primary school sewing classes. The collection also includes a device dubbed “Henry’s Coffin,” a revolving blackboard on a drum invented by Professor Henry Field and used for remedial reading experiments.

All will be housed in a museumpiece building which it is hoped will be accessible to the public — and fresh air.