MODERNISED TEACHING.
GETTING THE BEST RESULTS, VALUE OF AUTO-EDUCATION. A scheme of education, ■which happily combines the energies of teacher and pupil so as to get the best results Jn the most natural manner, was expounded by the senior inspector of schools in the Taranaki educational district (Mr. J. A. Valentine) at a meeting held at New Plymouth on Saturday, under the auspices of the Taranaki branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Mr. W. A. Curteis presided over an attendance of about eighty teachers, and, in announcing that Mr. Valentine would deliver an address on “Auto-Education,” said that the lecturer had also consented to give an address on similar lines at Stratford, Hawera, Opunake and Ohura, so that all teachers in the Taranaki district would have an opportunity of hearing about the scheme. “Auto-education is a new sulbject to me, and I cannot speak from the fruits of experience,” explained Mr. Valentine at the commencement of liis address. “It is one of t'he latest movements in education, but it bids fair to go a long way and to play an important part in school life.” Teachers often asked themselves the question: Why do not results come? It was often not because their efforts were lacking, but because they had Lot the co-operation of the pupils. This was i a fact that was' not peculiar to New Zealand, but one which prevailed over the whole of the world. Some wise folk had set themselves out to find why these things were so, and a movement had started in America which embodied in the main what was called the Dalton plan, so named from Dalton, the American city, where the plan was first attempted experimentally in a public secondary school. The scheme was the result of a striving after better things, MAKING ASSETS OF NUISANCES. “The whole principle involved in education is that on which life itself depends—growth through production, ’ asserted the lecturer, who proceeded to state that it was important that every man, child and yoyth should, by virtue of a cumulative practice, acquire a cumulative habit of mind. What a boy knew when he left school at the age of 14 must necessarily be very little, and, fortunately, it mattered very little. It was what the boy thought about the value of knowledge and the purposes of study that mattered even to his dying day. Dr. Montessori had always condemned “the general habit of considering the act of knowing as something final.” But the physical enengy and mental inquisitiveness of children could be turned into positive channels, and the teacher would find the spontaneity, the liveliness, and the initiative of his pupils practical aids in teaching instead of being made to be repressed, as was being done under the coercive system. “The very things which are now called interferences,” said Mr. Valentine, “will oecome positive qualities that the teacher is cultivating.” The lecturer lent point to his remarks by quoting amusing extracts from a small boy’s essay, the result of the production of a cultivated spontaneity. The Dalton plan was then outlined by Mr. Valentine, who said that the aims of the scheme were to form a community in the school, so that the school life would duplicate the life outside. The plan was one which would help the pupil to develop within that he might become a creator. “No one can do that for a pupil, ’ said Mr. Valentine; “it is a spiritual function, not of man, but of God. and it is Divine.” It was important to remember that the teacher was concerned with three periods of development in rhe growing child. Up to eight years of age this development was well-cared for under the Montessori system of instruction. From eight to twelve years was the period of pre-adolescence when the , “tools of knowledge” were acquired. “If the child is not well-trained in that period,” said Mr. Valentine, “all the junior high schools in the world won’t help you.” From 12 to 20 was the period of adolescence, a difficult period because of the physical changes that took place during that time. If the early preparation and training had been neglected or had been faultily taught, then woe to the adolescent youth, and woe to his teacher, too. THE DALTON PLAN EXPLAINED. The practical working of the Dalton plan was then explained by Mr. Valentine by the aid of written “contracts” in history and geography. Under the plan the child was allowed to do his own work under the guidance of the teacher. A child was set a contract in history or geography, for example. He could spend four or five days if he liked cn history alone. If he wished to study geography, all he had to do was to go to the room set apart for that subject. A contract was set him which he worked at himself, getting help if needed from the teacher in the room or from some of the older pupils, the children being encouraged to discuss their woes with each other. Thus the puzzled pupil got the help he needed. The child wrote the answers to the questions, and and the end of t'he hour, or two hours, or whatever time was allotted, left his work with the teacher to be marked or valued. The amount of work accomplished each day was registered on a • graph by the teacher. Of course, one teacher might have to take pupils in two or more subjects. Then there might be in the class several children who were backward in a particular phase of the work, and would need the special help of the teacher for five minutes, and, maybe, for half-an-hour at a time. A teacher under this system needed keen judgment, and would have to be experienced and fully qualified, in order particularly to know how to group the children. When the teacher was satisfied that the child had grasped the subject, then the amount of work done in that subject could be registered on the graph. THE SPIRIT OF WORK. ' By assigning the child these contracts an appeal was being made to his' sense of responsibility. As he also signed a form promising to carry out the contract to the best of his ability, an appeal was also made to his sense of honor. Thus the finished job took on a halo, because the child felt that he had overcome what had been unknown obstacles, but which now held no terrors for him. Thus it was that these contracts developed the spirit of work. If a child finished one contract before the time assgned had elapsed, the child was at liberty to do work in other unfinis'hed contracts, or to employ his time in any way he liked. Tn making up a contract it was essential that the directions should be very clear and very direct, for they were the specifications without which no contract was complete. Touching on the teaching of reading
under the plan, Mr. Valentine said that to most teachers reading meant hearing each pupil read aloud to much of a given lesson. Such teachers, then, might be puzzled to know how to deal with this subject. The first thing to do was to take a new view of the meaning and the aim of a reading lesson. Somehow the pupile themselves are to get the meaning of the printed passage, and they are to get as much as they can by their own efforts, not through the teacher. For instance, a class round about standards 3 or 4 would read through a passage in their book, make a list of words new to them, divide each into syllables, and mark in the- accents, use a dictionary where necessary, find out the meaning of the harder words, write out difficult expressions the meaning of which is obscure to the pupil, find phrases or sentences that appeal as 'being full of beauty, and so forth. TRUST REPLACES SUSPICION. The advantages of the Dalton plan were summarised by Mr. Valentine as the development of self-reliance, freedom from irksome restraint, and a chance for the pupil to work at his own rate. Then there was a great effect on character. Initiative, habits of industry, honest work, and ft wholesome respect for a job, were all cultivated. A trust was reposed in the children instead of their being placed in an atmosphere of suspicion. “I have brought these thoughts before you to-day,” said Mr. Valentine, in concluding, “because of our common responsibility with regard to our children. *.o live'a natural life is each child’s birth-right. Shall we, by our ignorance, our lack of sympathy and by our failure to provide him with the right environment, prevent the development of that natural life? If we do we crush development because the child’s desires and activities are not external things, but something which is born within and a link with God the Creator.” (Applause). The keen interest taken in the presentation of the scheme by Mr. Valentine was reflected in the number and variety of questions asked by teachers present. After these had been satisfactorily answered, Mr. O. Johnson moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Valentine for his excellent address, the chair man also speaking in glowing terms of the value of the address, and the motion was carried by acclamation.
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Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1922, Page 2
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1,559MODERNISED TEACHING. Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1922, Page 2
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