UPHILL FIGHT AGAINST PARENTS

Chronicle (Levin), 12 December 1946, Page 3

UPHILL FIGHT AGAINST PARENTS

—Press Association

SCIIOOL PRINCIPAL TELLS OF HIS DIFFICULTIES

By Telearayh-

WELLINGTON, Dec. 11. "If boys are self-indulgent, and if their minds are too keenly directed towards the rights and privileges and too little towards their ohligations and duties, 'whom are we to blame?" asked the principal of Rongotai College (Mr. A. H. Heron), speaking at the annual breaking-up ceremony last night. "It is customdry, as you know, on oceasions- of this kiitd for heads of schools to comment on certain aspects of education, -to outiine. their ideals, or to trace a blueprint for the future," Mr. Heron stated, .'''I have been too short a time head of this school to venture far upon this uncharted sea, but one brief topic does interest me, and it is this matter of our social duty. Lt is surprising, I think, that, in an age when the recognition of our pfaee as citizens with obligations to our fellows is being given legislativq form in Acts of social seeurity ,nnd the like, there lias not appeared.«a piore acute sense Af.somal d,u ty^ i n ., fclift . c o m mu n i ty and in the school. . "It is diffipult to see .how mucli progress in this. respect can be made in the schools. if -none is being made in the cbmmunity. If a boy is interested more in what he cgn get ; out of the school tlia'n iii what he; cM- put into it, where does lie ,learn_ tlie lebson.? Not at School. "Indeed, niy pl-oblem. ,foO; bfteh one of correctihg in the 'bb'j^'thfe faults1they have learned all too well at home and in the community at large. How far can a school get when it endeavours to insist on regular attendance^ when the community offers copious examples of un, justiliable absenteeism? "AVhat progress can be made in making bovs tidy and clean about the school when they see how their elders behave in this respect? I need only refer you to a view of the western bank of Athletic Park when the erowd has departed. "Iiead in the newspapers how com- . mon is the destruction of public property outside the school, and you will admit that the school is fighting uphill when it strives to teaeh respect for our c oniniou possessions. Wateh the conduct and listen to the language of some adults on a tramcar, and just think that this is the. model too of ten set before the receptive eyes and ears of youth. "If the ancient standards of eonduet — courtesy, dignity and restraint — with all they iinply, are to be preserved, the community must do its part. ' ' We commonly hear that this or that should be taught 'in the schools — temperauco, tho sanctity of marriage, the Bible, and others. A community that was temperate, that respected marriage, and which was religious would not need to teach these things in school at all. "Tlic responsibility for these- faults and the duty of correcting them caniiot be placed upou the schools. The eonduet of the child is in the main the responsibility of the parents. "Pupils are quite often sent to the Rongotai intermediate department because we have men teachers who will be able to control the boys who are uncontrollable at home. On several oceasions this year I have been told by parents that they can do nothing at all with their sons at home, that they 'rule the roost'." Mr. Heron remarked that he had seen the boys concerned. In every case, he added, they were "little chaps of about 12 years of age." The "terrible, tyrannical dictators of the household" were these small boys, he concluded.