LIFE'S MISFITS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4699, 16 May 1924, Page 2

LIFE'S MISFITS.

UR APPLING WITH THE PROBLEM. OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHERS. "A a meeting of the London Heaa Teachers' Association, presided over -by Sir Robert Blair, Chief Education Officer L.G.G., recently, Mr G. H. Miles, of the Institute of Industrial Psychology, opened a discussion on “Vocational Guidance in Schools.” Sir Robert Blair said that vocational guidance, if added to vocational training, made one of the most fruitful subjects that teachers could discuss. There was an enormous break in a child's life at fourteen, and he hardly thought it was fully realised what a serious thing it was for the child to leave school and enter hte conditions of factory or workshops. The parent needed to help in the way of vocational guidance and information, so that the best selection of ar. occupation could be made for the child. Let them consider for a moment the enormous number of “misfits" there were in London. They had heard it stated that children must be premired for life and leisure, and by leisure was meant something that had the sense of contentment and stable conditions in it. The two millions of unemployed had no leisure. There were in the County of London last August 40,000 boys anil girls out of employment, and when one considered the “in and out” life they lived one would see that there wa.s little in the sense of stable conditions and contentment with life to enable them to study in the sense that teachers asked them to do. For example, boys and girls of 11 or 15 would get employment for a neck in cracking Brazil nuts for sweetmeats because a cargo of Brazil nuts bad come into port’, then they would be unemployed for a week or a fortnight, and subsequently they might be found licking gummed labels or packing bottles. The school was a great sifter, and at the bottom there were sifted down the children who ultimately fell into work of that kind. He urged on all teachers that whatever happened in regard to the organisations that dealt with the placing of children they (the teachers) sinuld not keep out of the problem. Teachers engaged all day in schools were apt to get divorced from life ; they must be careful that the school did rot grow a high priesthood. Teachers who were concerned in placing the children could follow what happened to them afterwards, anl thus belter understand the value of the problem.

Mr Miles said that one of the first practical steps in vocational guidance was to widen the narrow outlook on life that most children had. In order to do this definite information as to local opportunities should b given while the children were still at school. In order to reduce the num--her of misfits in life there should be developed a method of gaining closer acquaintance concerning a child’s natural abilities and interests as distinct from his abilities and interests acquired during school life. A more exact knowledge of the psychology of the child and of temperamental peculiarities was essential to the building up of a satisfactory system of vocational guidance. Employers were recognising- that a careful selection or workers was necessary i ndcr present day conditions; and selection tests were devised to show whether > young person was fit for that particular job. There were large works in the North of England where psychologies bad been so successful in these tes's that the foreman of cue department had asked that in future all beginners should be so tested. Institutes and vocational bureaux were dealing with the problem of classifying occupations and developing tests, and the Institute of Industrial Psychology had established a vocational section. Even when capacity was tested it was found that allowance had to be made for factors like temperament and interests.