PASSING NOTES.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 192, 7 April 1893, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

[By

NEMESIS.]

At a late meeting of the Auckland Beard of Education a letter was read from the teacher of one of our Wairoa schools drawing attention to a system, which I believe, is pretty general, namely that of punishing children for non attendance at school. “ Set a thief to catch a thief ” is an old proverb which I do not wish to apply in this case, hut it seems that an ex-schoolmaster kept his child at home during school hours and when the child again appeared at school no note explanatory of absence was sent. The child was punished by detention after hours and the ex-teacher then complained of his child having been punished for no fault of its own, and said than when the child was kept at home the teacher could reasonably infer that there was good reason. The matter occupied the attention of the Boa’-d and it was resolved by them that the child should not have been punished by the teacher. Teachers’ salaries are dependent on the average of attendance of pupils at their schools and £ s. d. is always a potent motor, and many a child has been punished for absence from school when the fault has been entirely the parents. Of course the Board’s decision wai perfectly right, as it is manifestly unjust to punish a child for a parent s fault, if anybody’s. Possibly, however, if the question of the parent’s conduct were taken into consideration by the Board, that body might come to the conclusion that the teacher’s action, though not correet, was done in the interests of the child, the school and the country, whereas the parent’s action was opposed to the best interests of the child and school aud actuated by no good spirit. Possibly.

While on school affairs I would draw attention to another matter in which it seems to me that the best interests of pupils are being subverted to the aim for a high average attendance and its consequent dollars. The Aratapu School has not been allowed the Easter holidays, and the children whose Christmas holdays were very much interfered with by the frequent rains have lost the benefits which a holiday during this beautiful weather would have afforded them.. The holidays, rumour says, are to be given them during the wet season because that is the time when the attendance falls the lowest That is to say, the average attendance will be benefited by the school being open in fine weather and close in wet weather. For my part I consider the Board’s holiday arrangements very satisfactory for the health and comfort of the pupils and they should not bo so easily interfered with. By all means let every reasonable effort be made to secure the full attendance of children, but let the object in view be their education, not the average of attendance. I have heard of instances where a school has been opened on a wet day but the roll was not marked because of the small attendance* Average, average, average seems to bo the great object in view.