PARENTS & SCHOOLS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 158, 22 July 1937, Page 6

PARENTS & SCHOOLS

i— Preas Assooiation.)

An Experimeiai in New Education

AUSTR1AN VENTURE

f Rv TelesraDli

WELLINGTON, This Day. An outline of the system-of new education introduced by him into aa Austiuan school was given by Dr. Paul L. Dengler, director of the AustroAmerican Institute of Education, Yienna, in a New Education Fellowship conferenee address yesterday. For the purpose of his experiment, Dr. Dengler stated, he had chosen a secondary school which catered for boya between the ages of II and 19 years. He had approached the authorities and obtained permission to eonduct his experiment on any lines he wished, provided, of course, that he conformed to the law. "I chose oue of those secondary schools that look just like a prison," he said. Forty boys of varying types and conditions were selected, and 10 teachers, taken from the school he was then working at so that there would - be no question of a picked stafft were engaged to take part an the experiment. Dr. Dengler first approached the parenta of these boys. He let them see and experience for themselves ihe aetual conditions under which. their children were require.O to study." He let them sit on the same hard seats and before the same wooden rows of benches at which their sons spent the greater part iOf the year. Before long the seais and benches had been, replaced by tables and chairs, and the walls had been decorated at the expense of the parents themselves. Where a parent could not affiord to buy a table immediately — and there were, poor boyis at the school— -it .was paid for at the rate of a penny a week, and no one knew whosa table had beefi paid for and whoso had not. The parents wero encouraged to attend regular meetings at the school, and classes were always open to the parent if they cared to watch Hieir boys at work. After four years, not one father or mother was missing from the general assembly, and added interest was given to tliese 'meetings by the presence of sofhe interesting speaker. They also attended parents' disoussion nigihts. where they met in the rooms their children were nsing and actually sat at their own sons' tables. "I tried to make an experiment in self-government," said Dr. ijengler, intrpducing the methodg of teaching the nnemployed. "I split the class into four sections and appointed & section leader in each case." These leaders .were required to look after the boys in their sections, and to see that they did their work, were clean, and if one oi their ' section was missing: from ' school, find out the xeason from the parent, If the boy was sick, it wae the leader's duty to call on the boy and tell him what was done at school during the time he was absent. The acheme was really a form of social leadefship. After a time, the ehtire group was changed and new leaders appointed, so that there would be no likelihood of any form of a clique forming. ^"1 fond that some of the gteat talkers were poor leaders, 'i he said. Puties -were apportioned to the others, and there was not one boy in the class who did not have some duty to perform: There was also a head leader appointed. who, together with the group leaders, formed a kind of school council, After this scheme had been in operation for six or seven months, Dr. Dengler permitted the boys to elect their own groups and their own leaders^ Each boy was given one vote, and he himself had only one vote, though he retained the power to veto — -a power he very rarely used. There was no punisln ment, and every method was used tO arouse the boys' interest in all that' they did. Throughout the whole of his experiment, Dr. DenglOr said, he had stidved toward a co-operation between parents, teachers and children, Only by this means was it possible to do the best for the child. Referring to, the work of a Freneh class in" which he took the instrnction personally, he said that he had ignored the accepted form of instrnction by grammar. The boya were made to thank that they knew French, and though they made some terrible mistakes, tho results were iinally amazing. After four years' instruetion, the boys were equal " to boys who had had eight yOars' instruetion by the old method, and in an examination, students of 11 had obtained the same results as those of 18#