EDUCATING BACKBLOCKS CHILDREN.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 298, 9 March 1945, Page 5

EDUCATING BACKBLOCKS CHILDREN.

Sir,-May I say a few words on the above subject, in reference to your interview with a visiting teacher. I live on a backblocks farm. I have young children to educate. My husband gave his life for this good land of ours, In return, I receive a small pension. I am told I shall have to educate my children by "Correspondence Lessons." I am told

they are excellent, and self-explanatory. An ex-teacher, who has used them for years says, on the contrary, "it is almost as much trouble to teach with these lessons as without them." And that seems to be the opinion of all the parents I have questioned on the subject. Everyone admits that the lessons, as set out and arranged, are probably the best possible correspondence lessons, but to say they. are self-explanatory, especially to young children, is sheer nonsense. How many children, left to themselves

can, or will, work’ Actually the mother does the teaching — of course without pay. She also attends to various other matters, such as milking, feeding calves, gardening, cooking, washing, cleaning, sewing, etc., etc. She comes in tired from the milking shed and must begin super‘vising lessons, the washing up must wait, and often does, until near lunch time. This, month after month, and year after year. Now, these visiting teachers. They are kind, and, as the one you interview points out, tactful, They are generally clever. But do they help much-these so brief visits? Certainly they make a pleasant link between the School in Wellington and the children; and the teachers no doubt do their best in the very short time at their disposal. But at best the system is a poor one. Cannot the able man who runs it devise some more modern and helpful method? I am told the Correspondence School costs a great deal. The best housekeeper is not, of necessity, the one who spends the. most money! In any case, it is the comparatively small number of people on the land who produce most of its wealth, There is, or will be at the end of this season, almost five million pounds in the Meat Pool Account. That money belongs by moral right to the men and women who made it. Could it be better

spent than on improved facilities for the education of backblocks children?, Surely they have as much right to the best as city children have? Correspondence lessons are a poor second best, and, besides, the teaching of their own children is an intolerable burden to country mothers, when it is added to the inuumerable number of duties they must perform, especially in these war years, when farm labour is unusually short and inadequate, I notice that the "visiting teacher" you interview says her work is "fright« fully tiring." Well, well. Would she like to add to it, daily, the heavy tasks-all of them-of a backblocks mother? I shall be glad if you can find space for ® this letter., The matter is important, urgent, and very far-reaching in the life and future of our country.

WAR WIDOW

(Havelock).

[At the suggestion of Dr. A. G, Butchers, Principal of the Correspondence School, we re« ferred this letter to Mrs, H. A. Corrigan, Hon. Secretary of the Correspondence School Parents" Association, who commients as follows: "I can speak with long personal experience as a mother and supervisor of Correspondence School pupils, as well as in my capacity as Hon. Secretary of the Correspondence School Parents’ Association, the members of which almost all combine home duties with the supervision of their children’s studies. The Correspondence School has over 4,000 students. These possess probably just the same range of talents and industry as other New Zealand girls and boys who are in actual attendance at the public schools, both pris mary and post-primary. There is in ‘every school a proportion of pupils whose progress is below average, due to a variety of causes. It may be due to a lack of ability or of diligence (or both) on the pupils’ side; or to a lack of discipline and understanding (or both) on the parents’ side; or to some other cause or combination of causes not always easily determined. There pupils and parents do constitute problems for the Corresponds ence School as they do for any other school, and it is largely to find a solution for such personal problems that the visiting teacher service- was instituted, and has proved of such inestimable value. Let me advise ‘War Widow’ to take her courage in her hands, disregard hearsay and second-hand experience, and make a personal trial of the Correspond+ ence School service for her children. I shall be surprised if she does not become as ene thusiastic in praise of the School as she is now diffident na enrolling her children A 's P pil: , "Se