SCHOOL TEACHERS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4544, 26 March 1923, Page 2

SCHOOL TEACHERS

MEN OR WOMEN! An ex-public schoolboy, writing in the Overseas Daily Mail, writes :■ — After leaving a certain public school where I came in contact with, about 50 masters, I found it necessary to learn shorthand. I am now learning it under the guidance of an instructress. The greatest difference between masters and women teachers is that the latter are much more conscientious, and they'expect their pupils to be so as well. , Most masters'take up this position • “If you want to do the? work, do it and I will correct it for you. If you don’t want to do it, I don’t mind —-it will save a lot of trouble.” Masters appeal to the common sense, but women teachers try to appeal to the emotions. If one does anything wrong, a master may say / “Whatever are those hieroglyphics ? Why, anyone outside a lunatic asylum ought' to be able to do that!”

Does an instructress say anything like this’ Not she. She says: “My clear boy, what are you doing?” At first one is inclined to do more work for an instructress than one would for a master, but this heroic attitude is soon dropped, and one goes on much as before.

I consider that learning shorthand, or any other similar business subject. in this way gives one a good opportunity of understanding somethin of a woman’s outlook on life,. Tt is easier to appreciate another person’s attitude t,o something that one knows something about than it' is if one didn’t know anything abut the subject. I shall be sorry when my course finishes.