EDUCATION BY POST AND RADIO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 420, 11 July 1947, Page 14

EDUCATION BY POST AND RADIO

HOUGH the Post Office might well claim that without it there could have been no Correspondence School in New Zealand it would not be possible to make such a boast on behalf of the Broadcasting Service. Nevertheless, the fact that the Education Department’s Correspondence School has just celebrated its Silver Jubilee calls to mind the part which radio has played in helping the school in its numerous activities during the 16 years of their association. HE development of broadcast lessons has been considerable since these were first started. At first only one or two stations were used; now the Correspondence School sessions are heard from all the main National stations, by pupils all over the country. Lessons, talks, and plays are presented and contributions from the pupils themselves are welcomed, to encourage them in composition and self-expression. For the teaching of subjects where oral instruction is indispensable, radio plays a vital part. The Listener took the opportunity recently to talk to some of the school’s teachers who have been out visiting the homes of the pupils. The school sends out half-a-dozen teachers at a time and, travelling however they can, they work from homestead to homestead, staying a day or two with the pupil, helping him with his problems, and judging what progress he is making. The teachers said their first task was to persuade the pupil to regard them as helpful friends. They do not broach the subject of lessons immediately upon their arrival, but prefer to spend some time talking about everyday matters to the pupil and his parents; then they get the | pupil to show them things in which he is

interested and about which he can talk freely without shyness, They usually find that it is the pupil who first suggests getting down to business and thereafter everything goes smoothly. One teacher told of a small boy who jumped out of the window and took to the bush on seeing her approaching, but such cases are rare. The welcome that awaits the teacher is a comprehensive one. The whole family is often there, with a few friends and neighbours thrown in. School Uniforms Too The interest of the pupils in their school-work; the teachers said, is heartening. Many of them have arranged a room in the home, where one can be spared, to look as much like a schoolroom as possible. They have knocked a desk together somehow, and one child had even procured and had erected outside the house a school bell, which she

insisted on having jrung every day before lessons began. A point which will interest those readers who have followed the controversy over school uniforms in our correspondence columns is the pride with which many of the pupils (especially the girls) wear school uniform. The pupils who-perhaps benefit most from broadcasting are those who are learning languages, shorthand, and musical appreciation. Languages could at one time be taught only by using a system of written phonetics to indicate pro-nunciation-so important to the mastery of any language. It was found difficult by this means alone to bring the student up to a high enough standard of proficiency to satisfy some examiners; but now, with the aid of oral lessons by radio, pronunciation can be quickly and easily mastered. For shorthand students dictation is given by radio and for those studying musical appreciation records of the works of any composer of importance canbe played and are commented upon by a teacher and passages illustrated on the piano. The many clubs run by the school are also each given a share of the school’s broadcasting time. Strength of the Spoken Word Radio, moreover, has strengthened the personal bond between pupil and teacher. It has made the teacher a real personality to the pupil and has made learning easier and pleasanter. For the teacher it has lightened the task of conducting courses of study by reinforcing the power of the written word with that of the spoken word. Personal contact with his teacher means a lot to the pupil in the backblocks. Children write in for photographs of their teachers and the teachere themselves like to hear about the children. The result is a genuine atmosphere of fellowship among teachers and pupils all over New Zealand. Few of them have seen each other, but common interests and affections centre on the school. And when the Correspondence School pupil comes to enter a "real" school or take up a profession for himself he does so with the full confidence that he has been as well equipped for his undertaking as any other person in the country.