OVERTAXED TEACHERS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 251, 17 July 1919, Page 6

OVERTAXED TEACHERS

THE SIZE OP CLASSES. At yesterday's meeting of the Wellington Education Board Mr. G. T. London moved;— e That a return be prepared showing the schools in which there are uuderstafFed classes, e.g., the number and standard where tho class exceeds forty pupils controlled by one teac.hnr. Mr. London said that it was absurd for anv educational authority to expect the best results when the classes were too larjre. A teacher could not give individual attention to seventy or eighty children in a class. He had been told bv an exDorieuced teacher that it was not nossible to educate seventy children in a class. At least twenty of the children in such a class, requiring special attention, would net receive any education at all. Yet teachers in Wellington were being required to undertake impossible tasks of this kind. Mr. London uuoted figures to show the anomalies that existed in the size of classes, and added that the point to bo remembered was that education was not a driving force. The teacher, in order to get good results, had to lead, not drive, the mtDils. The pull was greater than the push in dealing with children. The' motion was carried. Mr. London gave notice of motion:— "That the most pressing need in the advancement of education is to affirm that it does not conduce to efficient teaching and the proper development of the child where the class exceeds thirty-five pupils as a. maximum, aud that this adjustment should take precedence of all other educational advancement and reform."