SPACE NEEDED

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 438, 20 May 1937, Page 2

SPACE NEEDED

SMALLER CLASSES Fundamental Reforms Press Association—Copyright Wellington, May 19. Strong arguments for a number of fundamental reforms in the education system of the Dominion were used by Mr. F. L. Combs in his presidential address to the 54t.h annual meeting of the New Zealand Educational Instituute. The changes advocated by Mr. Combs were more spaces in schools, smaller classes, and realistic instead of academic education for both children and those in training for the teaching profession. The most-wan'ied material improvement in New Zealand schools, and, on a basis of annual cost, the cheapest to provide, he said, wag more space, both enclosed and unenclosed. The offijeial standard of 12 square feet of enclosed space for each child was rarely exceeded and too often notf provided. The standard ought to be raised to at. least 24 square feet. ■ This extra space was not only badly but urgently needed to permit of pupil activity. A more costly requirement was teaching-power. The born teacher, trained in charge of 50 children, must reluctantly sink to level of a skilled machinist ordering and directing her young charges in a manner reminiscent of barrack room and pipeclay. National Interests ( In advocating a more realistic education for children, Mi. Combs said, a child’s natural interests were derived from his own environment and tended to be visible, tactile and concrete. The world, of abstractons toward which the academic mind tended Was beyond the sphere of such childish realities'. Mathematics was real enough to a student of astrophysics; it could have no reality for a child. There was time enough later to graft wider and more abstract ideas upon the stock of information collected in childhood. In conclusion Mr Combs' advocated as essential the establishment of continuation schools in which people of various ages might carry on their education at the same time that they were earning a living and gaining experience in the practical world.