SIMPLIFICATION OF THE SCHOOL SYLLABUS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 15

SIMPLIFICATION OF THE SCHOOL SYLLABUS.

■ DISCUSSION BY THE RCHOOT. COM- ; MITTEES' ASSOCIATION. CONDEMNATION BY* MISS ; MARCHANT. : At last week's meeting of" the Dunedii - y nd Suburban School Committees' Associa ; tion the subject of the simplification of th« : school syllabus was brought forward by the receipt of a letter from Mr D. Wishart, chairman of the High Street School Com mittee, who wrote that he thought the time was opportune for a thorough discussion, with a view to the formulation ol some tangible and satisfactory improvement to be brought under the notice of the Minister of Education that he might take some definite action in the matter. Mr . Wishait concluded by saying he hoped to oe able to speak more fully at the meeting " He, however, was unable to be — pi;s»ent, and Mr W. B. Steel took his place, inr' introduced the subject in a lengthy • condemnatory paper. He said: Those whose misfortune it has been to employ boys and g:rl3 fresh from the primary schools are ; almost unanimous in the evidence given of the results of the system. This evidence divides itself into three principal sections: (1) Inability to do correctly ordinary sums; (2) conversation and composition weak and ungrammatical ; (3) faulty, and often illegible, handwriting. The syllabus is overloaded— that is self-evident,— and the fact that the Minister of Education was reported a few weeks ago to have suggested the increasing of the school hours for the upper standards is a sure indication that, even in the house of its progenitors, the school time is insufficient for the many-sided complexity we call . primary education. The speaker cited from the syllabus specific instances which he considered were unnecessary to a proper understanding of the subject. Continuing, he eaid : Let the simple addition table be ground thoroughly into the children's jnemory, and from constant practice let the eight of figures become so familiar that .they will never see a column of them but almost automatically they will add' them, end do it correctly. In Standard IV at least I would abolish the "problem sum" (and all that it contains. English : This subject is at once the thorniest and most unsatisfactory in the # whole curriculum. sThafc the children leaving school after ixxetruction in the Sixth Standard are wofully deficient in knowledge of their mother (tongue everyone at all conversant -with the school wiit admit. It is painful to hear ifche ordinary conversation of such pupils. .Glaring errors in syntax, grammatical inaccuracies, slipshod pronunciation form the main stream; backlashes there »re of slang expressions and colloquial phrases, with here and there a floating Srrack of mining aspirates and nasal intonaikion6. And for the reason let tihe syllabus ipeak. Again followed a. detailed cntiIpism oi the system of the syllabus. Grama Itical terms are introduced for the guidance ©f the teacher, hut the pupils are no* to be therewith; they are to learn by Slntution or instinct! A great English Authority says: — "The analysis of sentences £■ a far more fruitful exercise, because, -feeing the converse of composition, it bears

v more closely upon the practical side of lan guage, and beoause it often furnishes c ready means of making clear an obscuw passage." In the matter of reading books a protest should certainly be made against that inapt and inane publication the School Journal being foisted on the classes as a reader. The second reading book should be almost wholly historical and geographical, working up in a continuous series from th« 3 lower standards Enough is not made of 3 either subject in this direction, and history could be intertwined with English reading I and spelling admirably. The geogiraphy of 3 the syllabus is simply preposterous. Throughout the w<hcle course physical geof graphy receives undue prominence, but it t only deals with vaguer generalities, while > political and commercial geography is over- ; looked. Too great stress is also laid upon III I mathematical geography — i.e., for the age ) and genera l intelligence of the pupils, and the amount of stress that is laid upon ob5 servation and experiment, the taking of altitudes and the observation of stars. Then, r to cap all, the instructions for Standard IV * read: — "Should teachers from any cause, * however, find themselves unable to base their ; teaching directly upon the observation of stars and other phenomena, simple models | may be used and diagrams therefrom. In no case can the teaching of mathematical ' geography be regarded as satisfactory if | '• it is taught from books and diagrams alone." , j The syllabus is a valiant endeavour to teach , | a child all that there is in the heaven above ' ant? in the earth beneath and in the water j under the earth at one fell swoop. In connection with hand-writing one good step in recent years has been the abolition of the upright hand (a reform we owe to the per- ' sistent advocacy of a prominent member of this association), the good effect of which will be felt as the years go by. But still we require more time. At present a visitor to a school will be shown copy books beauti- , fully written, and, if satisfied with a cursory glance, will say that the writing is good. But let him see how it is done and the amount of a single lesson. Then he will find that only a few lines are got through at each sitting, and the children draw the J letters— they don't write them. At least 25 per cent, more time should be given to writing. How to get the extra time required for these studies is now the question. It is impossible to lay down a hard and fast rule, but it seems thai the only way to secure the desired result is to jettison all those fancy studies whdeh have been piled up during the past years. I know I am laying hands upon the sacred ark and shall be smitten "for my sacrilege, but I do it, nevertheless, and stoutly maintain that they must go. "Woodwork, bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting, plasticene, gardening, cookery— these and many more wall in turn be held aloft as the one thing needful. Amid tho welter of confused proposals we must try to keep 6teadily in view the real and fundamental issue — how best to fill tihe short and precious years of school life 6O that they may on the whole form the most effective preparation for the varied aotivities of adult life From these reasons it was moved— " That, in the opinion of this meeting, the time has arrived for the complete recasting- and rearranging of the syllabus for primary school^ to allow

- greater timo and attention being devotee ! to the essentials of education; and that i } ! be an- instruction to the executive of thu ' association to communicate with the Minis j! tea* of Education upon tlie subject." I Mr J. B. Waters seconded the motion t 6aying that the question they had to con > 6ider was not so much how the matter vat t to be put right as simply to enter theii , protest that there was something wrong ir \ the present system. Most business mer r found that the boys coming to them die r not have that grounding in essentials that [ they should have. What was expected oi the school master was that a broad founda- . tion should be laid on whioh other acquire- ; ments might be built. It was a known fact i that a boy's writing for the first year was unfit to go out of tho office, and very often it took three years to break him in. . Again, in composition the boys could not be trusted to write a brief letter These were facts, and in view of these defects they were justified in passing his motion. Dr Srenhouse said he concurred in a good deal of what had been said. He considered they should be as practical as possible in suggesting any alterations to the syllabus. In the earlier standards children were ex pected to learn so many lines of^poetry, but »he thought none should be memorised below the Fourth Standard. Medical lectures to ohildren wer« also deprecated Mr W. Mowat (North-East Valley) resti- , fied to the fact that under the Sixth Standard the time of the children was taken | up with unnecessary problems. i Mr James Brown (president of the Wurei housemen's Association) was received with . applause. He had understood that imI provements had been made in the syllabus, j but if Mr Steel was right, deterioration must have taken place. With regard to the equipment of boys for commercial life, there was required a thorough knowledge of common arithmetic, grammar, and tho principles of composition. Something of geography and history was good for general education, but these things did not come within the curriculum of a commercial man's requirements. A boy should also be given a knowledge of commercial terms. He did not think he should be taught bookkeeping.—(" H'^ar, hear.") The teaching of the typewriter would be useful, and, if possible, another year for shorthand. It must be remembered that they could not expect too. much from the schoolmaster or the boy. The boy on leaving school could not be expected to take up any position in an office. His environment was altogether strange, but nevertheless ha must ag-ree with Mr Waters that the material they had to work on was somewhat poor. The speaker concluded by expressing his sympathy with the desire for simplification. Mr J. Allen, M.P., said the syllabus was a matter of regulation and not a matter for Parliament. He agreed with Mr Waters that the product from the primary schools for th© present and for some years past had not been good. He did not know, however, that the syllabus was to blame, aa it had been in existence only for a few years. The present syllabus had been devised with the object of encouraging the teacher to use his own individuality.'and if it had succeeded in that he thought, it was an iiupro\ement. One answer to their

J objections to the syllabus was that th< t technical schools could turn out the ver; s best accountants in New Zealand in a ver - short time. Bu.t how could they do tha unless the boys had had a good primary training. That wae a question he wa.nte< I answered. Ho thought the time in whicl 3 the present syllabus had been in operatioi r hhd been too short to allow of it beinj t judged. He would like to have a distinc l statement as to whether the boy of to-dai I was worse in reading, writing, and arith t metic than he was eight years ago. f Mr J. F. Arnold. M.P., eaid he was t< . a very large extent in sympathy with the , resolution before the meeting. In n:anufac ; tures, as well as in commercial life, the , difficulty of getting useful boys was mosi . noticeable. They had emphasised thre< essentiail subjects, but he thought it woulc ; be necessary for them to chow what were , unessential. It was necessary that the . Dominion should keep pace with the progress being made in other countries. H« would support the syllabus unless experte ; agreed some subjects were unessential. Mr W. R. Brugh thought that, in addition to the simplification of the syllabus the conception of " malting it more practical " hhouH obtain. They wanted practical men to join with the inspector-general and point out to him the" most practical subjects, and teachers should be taught the practical side of things. Mr J. H. Wilkinson considered it was impossible with each teacher controlling from 40 to 100 pupils to obtain the results gained in the old Scotch way by the individual control of the teacher. No doubt many of the brighter pupils were benefiting from t»he new syllabus. Now, one reason why the commercial men were crying out was that the boys were not going to the offices so much as formerly, but were, rather, entering upon trades. He did not agree that the provisions of the syllabus for teaching in Standards I and II were altogether wrong : he thought they were a great improvement. Professors also now recognised that grammatical rules were not so necessary as a wide acquaintance with literature. Probably in a. few years' time, when the syllabus had had time to work out properly, they would have reason to bless those who had framed the syllabus. Miss Marchant said that as a teacher she had to deal with the pro-duct of the primary schools, and she found that the ma/terial coming tr> tile Hig^h School was not so good as it had been 10 years a.go. At Chrisfcchurch last year a meeting of the Head Masters' "Association proved unanimous in finding that the presrnt j pupils were not nearly up to the old j standard, there being a weakness in English and a weakness in arithmetic. The Enerlish had become so vague that the children's knowledge was ft -quicksand. They had nothincr to build upon when they came to the High School. There they had to learn another language besides Enelish, and the teachers round that the pupils were so ignorant that they could not call the parts of speech by their names, but would say the name of a thing in place of calling it a noun, po the teachers had to teach iho children the rudiments of grammar. Anothnr thing wa-s the absolute weakness in geography, and an almost equal absence of a knowlrdpe of history. Mi" Maichant then cited an

c instance which had occurred yesterday y morning. There were 11 or 12 girls under y 14 years of age. and from thesa sha found t that they actually did not know the name* y of the countries of Europe, and had inslead i been taught physical geography. This li syllabus was a wonderful intellectual feat a — " I am not speaking ironically," said j Mtss MarchaiKt, — and was intended to t meet a tremendous variety of conditions - that might arise, but tho fault seemed to . her to be that the syllabus was foisted upon a number of teachers who liad been brought up on othetr lines, and these wererequired to teach under the new ideas. 5 The children were now suffering from «« ' mixture of methods. Of course, with the 3 now training colleges trning out new fc teachers this fault would gradually dis- » appear. The secret of the non-success of I the syllabus at present was that it was i based on a fallacy, and this fallacy was 5 that children had reasoning powers, and - could only be compelled to learn by exer3 cising their reasoning powers. Children 3 in lower standards had no reasoning ■ powers; memory was what they reliecf . on, and. memory was ignored, and that j was the difficulty. With a clever pupil and a clever teacher the system would produce geniuses, but for th© average I pupil and the average teacher the system I was wrong. She wanted to express the . opinion of the teachers of the secondary schools, which was that the results of the-_ present teaching system ehowed an absolute falling off. Year by year it was getting worse. The Girls' Ilierh School had been a free school since 1905, and sho. had personally examined the new pupil.*, and it was a matter of daily remark amongst the teaching staff that they did not know how to deal with these children. Their knowledge was vague and inaccurate, arithmetic especially, as the commercial men had told them, being absolutely inaccurate What thinsrs ought to go from the. syllabus she would not venture to suggest. She was not an expert in primary schools, but could only remark upon the results. Certainly they wanted^ reading, writing, and arithmetic, » hatevar i subjects were "taught. There were unJ deniably defects in the system, but thesolution she left to wiser heads.—(Applause.) A vote of thanks was accorded Miss M*rchant. after which tho meptinor adjourned, the discussion to be continued at a later meeting.

In a White Paper dealinc: with the cost of the proposed Labour exchanor<?3 in Great Britain Mr Churchill calculates that 240- ! exchanges will bo required. These, with ' all necessary expenditure in working, will cost about £100,000 this year, and the charcre will rise to a maximum of £210,000' next year. As the permanent buildinprs are erected the amount saved on rent will be about £10,000 a year, and by 1919 the annual cost will have been reduced to. £180,000. "Speak to me only with thine eyes," Byfc let those eyes be clear; A cold soon makes thorn otherwise — Dim, swollen, red, and blear. But still, if beauty would allure When colds have made her plain, Woods' Peppermint Cure will soon secure* Her 6peaking eyes again.