More "Real Life"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 156, 19 June 1942, Page 23

More "Real Life"

THE running of the model flat is but one part of the many-sided social training received by Kowhai pupils. On the Friday afternoon I visited the school many of the third-torm pupils were in the throes of "personality classes." As the pupils will leave school at the end of the year they must be prepared to face such situations as the interviewing of possible employers, the running of meetings, perhaps the organisation of a sports club, and accordingly such activities are rehearsed in the classroom. And, judging by the ease and complete lack of selt-consciousness with which the children went through their paces, I should think that they would not be lacking in poise or self-confidence when they finally face such situations in real life. The first "scene" was a newspaper office, manned entirely by third-form girls. Behind an imaginary partition the Great Mans secretary banged a typewriter and murmured white lies about previous engagements into the telephone. Outside the partition, a lesser confidential secretary dealt relentlessly with interruptions, and wired ahead reports of those whom the Great Man had consented to see. And all the time enterprising girl reporters were rushing in and out, flourishing notebooks and ordering the Great Man’s lady to Hold the Front Page, Have I Got a Story! But although the players in such "real life" dramas may find real life somewhat different from its classroom equivalent, nevertheless I felt that they would probably carry over into the business world something of the enjoyment and gay insouciance which characterised Kowhai’s "personality

classes."

M.

B.