WOMEN TEACHERS CONFER

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3138, 17 July 1917, Page 2

WOMEN TEACHERS CONFER

DEFECTS OF EDUCATION. A. meeting of the Women Teachers' As® sociation (Wellington Branch) was l.eld in the Education Buildings last evening. Aliss Coad (president) occupied the chair, Tho first matter to bo dealt with v- as a resolution passed and forwarded by the Women's National Council for the association's co-operation, protesting against such methods as carnivals, art unions, and all forms of voluntary taxation for tho purposo of raising money for the relief of soldiers and their dependants. Tho council regarded such iu(ans as being inadequate, objectionable, and wasteful, absorbing valuable time end energy in non-reproductive work, and unfair to tho general public, who do not need to he bribed in doing their duty. It was also most humiliating for the soL diers themselves and their relatives, and the council considered tho properly graduated taxation of wealth to be the most equitable and suitable means of raising money for this object. The meeting of women teachers fully endorsed the resolution, and in passing it stated the opinion that such means as carnivals, art unious. etc., for raising money had a very bad influence upon the children. For that reason alone they would support the motion. Aliss Coad stated that tho object of tho meeting_ that evening was to cousider tho correlation between primary and secondary schools. When, however, they sought to bring in the teachers who were doing upper work in primary ►•elioois they wero astonished to find how few there were. It was a revelation of the. position which women teachers occupied in the primary schools, and as a result they had to arrango for the teachers of secondary schools to meet tile teachers of primary ones to discuss matters relating to school work. There wero many natters culling for reform, and it. was cnly through the efforts of the teachers themselves that these reforms could bo brought about. Aliss Rowley (representing a secondary school) read extracts from an article setting out what tho aims should bo iti'-cdu-cnting girls in secondary schools, nnd in discussing certain efipects-of the subject, snid that one of the faults of secondary schools in this country seemed to b? that tho girl who did not intend to go in for professional lifo was not provided for. The primary schools provided for a certain amount of home training, and so did tho secondary schools., but iv. between was a gap which would bo filler! if there were continuation schools. She thought that, all girls ought to attend

school till they wero fifteen at least, then go on to tho technical schools, and if they were clever girls then on to the high schools where they could be educated for a profession.

Aliss Hunt, also representing a secondary school, spoke interestingly upon the knowledge or lack of knowledge possessed by girls who had passed on from tho primary schools to the secondary, '.'lie primary schools were, slio considered, overloaded in regard to the syllabus, and tho girls frequently arrived at the secondary school with sadly bewildered and disordered brains. The aim of tho primary school seomed to bo to provide the pupil with as much of a smattering of subjects as possible, so that she would bo able to say she knew something about such and such a subject. The arithmetic that was taught for girls in these schools was far too much for them, and she strongly advised that it should be taught only up to a ccrtain point, which the secondary schools could follow up later. Their brains would not retain for leug what they had learned, so overloaded wero they. Another fault that she found with tho primary schools was that tho children wero not taught formal g!animal-. Parsing, for -instance, was <Try littlo taught, and yet how were children to be corrected in their speech unless reasons wero given for correction. It was not necessary to teach a great deal of formal grammar, but far mole than was done at the present time. Store history ought to bo taken in connection with English. Aliss Hunt thought; New Zealand history, as well as Imperial.

Aliss Coad also emphasised tho inadequacy of tho teaching received by children in the primary schools, particularly in arithmetic. They could neither add, subtract, lior multiply correctly. Various other opinions were passed by some of the teachers present, most of whom showed themselves very open to conviction in regard to tho necessity for reform.