EDUCATIONAL METHODS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4551, 16 April 1923, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL METHODS.

SOME INTERESTING SUGGESTIONS. p • “A report has been issued recently,” said Mr. C. H. Opie, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Christchurch Technical College at the meeting of that body (says a Christchurch paper), “by a representative English committee dealing with the differentiation of the curriculum of boys and girls respectively, in secondary schools Evidence has been taken from teachers, headmasters, parents medical men, psychologists,.and a’l others whose evidence could be of value, and the report is of great interest to us, in view of the fact that co-education is carried on in our school “The committee states that a differentiation of course should be made according to the different social functions that are to be carried out by the pupils, but that it should not necessarily I oliow by reason of the difference of sex. No recommendations are made as.to set curricula, but instead a wide curriculum in each school is advised, with a fair choice of subjects, to. allow pupils some latitude in following their natural bent. "More attention should be paid to training for leisure, and in this connection the committee points out that insufficient attention is given in the English secondary schools to education in music and art. There is nc doubt that, speaking generally, the same fault is to be found with our schools in New Zealand. At the same time the committee draws attention to the fact that girls have their time more fully occupied than boys, especially in domestic duties, so that if they progress in their studies as rapidly as boys, it is only by exercise of more physical and mental exertion. ( " The committee makes a recommendation that boys should include a measure of practical domestic work in their secondary school courses, and this, is all the more interesting to us, since for several years numbers of the boys attending this college received instruction in cookery.“A valuable suggestion by the committee is worthy of notice, name-, ly, that many of the activities of the schools are over-organised, and too much is done for the scholars, both in the class-room aud outside it. The opinion is given that this fault produces children who are well informed but rather dull, and lacking in spontaneity and initiative. In New Zealand as well as in English schools there is an undoubted tendency to over-organise.”