PUKEKOHE NIGHT SCHOOL

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 380, 31 May 1918, Page 2

PUKEKOHE NIGHT SCHOOL

Teacher and Unruly Pupil,

The trials a teacher has to undergo in dealing with boys and girls who, having passed beyond day school age, have to attend continuation classes at night time were unfolded at the Pukekohe Court yesterday before Mr J. E. Wilson, S.M. ( when, at the instance of Mr P. J. Kalaugher, the Supervisor of Education, William Dickson, of Helvetia Road, Pukekohe, was proceeded against in respect of his son, Thomas, being guilty of gross misconduct at the Pukekohe Technical School on the evening of April 15th. Mr H. S. Small, Truant Officer, conducted the prosecution and Mr J. G. Haddow defended.

The evidence of Mr F. C. Day, the teacher of the classes in queation, was to the effect that the boy Dickson arrived at the school a quarter of an hour late and when questioned as to his reason for being late simply shrugged his shoulders and said " I don't know." A lesson in English formed the first part of the studies and the boy deliberately sat with his back to the teacher and moreover scanned a page in the book other than the one from which the lesson was being imparted. Arithmetic sums followed but the boy only did one sum and five minutes before 9 p.m.—at which hour the studies were due to cease—he got up and walked towards the door, having previously thrown his arithmetic paper into the coal-scuttle. Mr Day remonstrated with him for attempting to leave and ordered him to recover his arithmetic paper, whereupon the boy made the other scholars laugh by the farcical manner in which he lifted up the coal-scuttle to secure the paper. As a consequence Mr Day oraered him out of the room.

Mr Day was proceeding to say that the boy was constantly similarly insolent when Mr Haddow objected pointing out that the charge was in respect of gross," misconduct " on a specified day. Cross-examined by Mr Haddow, Mr Day stated that he did not remember that he said to the boy, " Tou are a pig and have been brought up like a pig." He, however, might have used those words as he admitted that he lost his temper with the boy. He might at times have called a boy a blockhead but he would like to know a teacher who had not.

Without calling on the defence, the Magistrate dismissed the charge stating that he considered that the incidents complained of hardly reached a degree that could be construed as of gross misconduct but he added that his decision would have been different if the charge had been one of habitual disobedience. He trusted that the father would take notice of his remarks as Mr Day had evidently a difficult task in handling the boys. In reply to Mr Haddow, His Worship refused to allow costs to the defendant.