Obstacles to Teaching

Abstract

IN her presidential address on April 16 to the National Union of Teachers, Mrs. E. V. Parker, a teacher in a London County Council school, dwelt on those unfavourable conditions which hamper the work of teachers eager to contribute to the salvaging of civilization. The generous ideals of the Hadow Report, foreshadowing the elimination of social class distinctions in a unified system of public education and “freedom for every child to attain its full stature”, have not been realized ; nor can they be without provision by the community of proper material environment in school and home and drastic reduction of the size of classes. The freedom of the teacher is threatened with partisan interference which seeks “to sap and undermine by labelling many of our positive educational activities as propaganda”. In the junior school the incubus of the external examination from which elementary schools were rescued in 1895 has reimposed itself as an instrument for selection for free secondary school places, which should be the birthright of every British child. In the new senior schools a large measure of freedom is enjoyed, but they need levelling up to the standard of the older secondary schools in point of leaving age, staffing and amenities. Meanwhile, it is essential that the last months before the child leaves school should be devoted to an earnest effort to gather up the loose threads of knowledge, to give meaning to all the work already done, making plain its applicability to the problems of life and providing the stimulus that will result in a continuance of interest and effort for self-education.