CHILDREN’S EDUCATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1940, Page 2

CHILDREN’S EDUCATION

SIGHT SAVING SCHOOL ESTABLISHED. TASMANIA PIONEERS NEW STEP. Tasmania is pioneering a new development in children’s education in Australia by the establishment of a sight-saving school which will be opened in Hobart next month by the Minister of Education (Mr Ogilvie). In it about twenty-five boys and girls with defective sight will be trained by methods which should conserve and assist their limited powers. The first class of this type was established by the London County Council in 1907, but, as school medical inspection improved, it was found advisable to form more schools of the kind in other parts of Great Britain. By 1934 there were thirty-four wellattended classes.

Hobart has improved on the original idea by building a separate school for this work.

' Although the building is not yet free from plasterers and electricians, there are already a dozen children at work in the main classroom, a large room with the entire northerly side composed of glass and cleverly adapted to ventilate in all weathers. When natural light falls below a certain standard, electric lights are switched on automatically and fixed ceiling lights focus en the blackboards. Small light desks of Pacific oak can be moved so that each child works at a distance from the board best suited to his range of vision.

The great innovation is that the “blackboard” is coloured pale yellow and the chalk used on it is a deep blue. Experiment has shown that considerable eyestrain arises from the light background of books with black printing, to the black background of the old-fashioned board with its white writing. This is now eliminated by the use of pale yellow paper and a primrose board. The children working at the school under Miss E. Conolly and two assistants range in age from five to fifteen. Some of them are so nearly blind that they are learning to use a Braille machine. For arithmetic, the questions are set in Braille and the sums are worked out on perforated metal sheets in which a large type can be set. A girl of fourteen demonstrated fairly complicated money calculations by this method. Some of the older children are learning typewriting, and arrangements are being made for cookery classes and other branches of domestic science to be attended by girl pupils. Stress is laid on regular physical culture and music, and, of course, all manner of handicrafts are taught. These children are to reside in the Tasmanian Institution for the Blind, Deaf, and Dumb, where one of the junior teachers is resident. She will supervise the short daily walk to and from the school.