LIFE AT TEACHERS' COLLEGE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 938, 2 August 1957, Page 26

LIFE AT TEACHERS' COLLEGE

VERY year some 2000 people set out to be teachers. Many of them have just left school, some come from good positions in business and industry, and some from University. But nearly all of them attend one of the six Teachers’ Colleges for training. What goes on in these Colleges? That was the question that Basil Sands, of the NZBS Talks Section, set out to answer in the documentary programme, To Be a Teacher, which will be broadcast in the Sunday National Programme on August 11. "The first thing I discovered,’ Mr Sands told The Listener, "was that a Teachers’ College is not just a place where prospective teachers are taught to teach. As one staff member pointed out, after 10 years in the profession a teacher is still learning. Some students go to a Teachers’ College expecting to be given nothing but a set of rules which will enable them to get through the syllabus in a classroom. That could be done, but it would not be education. I was told the story of the man who claimed he had had 30 years of teach-

ing experience; but what he really had was one year’s experience repeated 30 times." How are entrants selected? Surprisingly, the first consideration is not academic ability, but rather that of personality and temperament; though there is necessarily a minimum acacemic standard. As a member of the selection panel pginted out, "It’s much easier to perfect a student’s formal academic education than te develop new educational attitudes." What impressed Mr Sands most at a Teachers’ College was the busy atmosphere. Students appeared to be hard at work, whether at a lecture, doing an experiment, taking part in a discussion, or playing basketball. "The keenness, I found, is largely a result of giving students a great deal of freedom," he said. "They are told what goals they should have reached at theend of two years; but the cetails are, in ‘part, at least, left to the individual student. Of course, there is a basic core of subjects, covering everything from musical appreciation to the functioning of an earthworm. and from child psy-

chology to the legal aspect of teaching. But the staff considers that in two years the chief job is to equip a student with the right attitudes to be a successful teacher." Teaching, like most professions, tends to have a language of its own, and for the stucent teacher, one of the most important of his assignments is "going on section." This is the practical side of teacher training, when the student goes out to schools to observe and take lessons under the guidance of selected teachers. One third of the two-year course is spent in this way. Section books are carefully prepared records, giving details of lessons taken by the student, and comments by the associate teacher, Were there any problems in making a radio programme of college activities? "One of the problems of recording a classroom," said Mr Sands, "is poor acoustics; schools are not yet provided with wall to wall carpets, and so there is a great deal of reflected sound! "There was also the cifficulty of trying to hide a microphone in a primer classroom’ away from 30 pairs of very sharp eyes; or that of trying to persuade some white rats, which were bred by the students, to squeal (they didn’t). But hardest of all was trying to decide which aspects of College life to, include in only 30 minutes of programme." Social activities are encouraged in the Colleges, so that the young teachers will be able to mix in the adult world outside school and playground. And_because teachers are often looked to as leaders in their community, cultural development is encouraged, "For goodness sake con't call it culture," said one staff member (but what else can. you call it?), "and point out that it is made available to the students -we don’t thrust it upon them."