set 1980 : no. 1

The original planning committee of the Whanau House design stated its expectations in Secondary Schools for Tomorrow. The expectations were that the House would be 'more intimate', provide 'room for spontaneity', be 'guidance centred', and 'give each pupil insights, knowledge and experience so that he can understand himself and the people he lives and works with, in both the smaller and the larger community; and to make the most of what he can do… Read more

What do New Zealand teachers expect of their pupils? Are their expectations culturally stereotyped? Do they treat some pupils differently because of their stereotypes?

An economist looks at what it costs society to invest in children and their education- and what it pays.

In 1979/80 the government set aside $1,047,140,000 for education. That is 5.2% of our Gross Domestic Product. Spending on Education has been increasing but now fewer babies are being born, immigration has almost ceased, emigration is at an all time high, times are tougher economically, so how may education expect to fare? Experts on population changes and finance can look into the future and show us our options reasonably clearly,. but they cannot predict the future. Calculated guesses… Read more

"What is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother-substitute - one person who steadily 'mothers' him) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment."
This is perhaps the most notorious quotation from John Bowlby's report to the World Health Organisation in 1951, published as Child Care and the Growth of Love in 1953. What has… Read more

Is the issue worth investigating? After all, numerous studies have shown that the home environment is a major influence on behaviour, and, within the school, more promising variables for study are teacher-pupil relationships, the curriculum, and specific teaching strategies. I concede at the outset that the size of a school which a child attends is unlikely to be a major influence on his behaviour, but it could be a very pervasive one- millions of children in Australia and New… Read more

Teachers are almost universally agreed that large classes "are exhausting, a cause of frustration, and a reason for failure in basic subjects". Their views about what constitutes a "large" class have changed considerably in recent years, however. The same author quotes figures for England to show that the optimum size of class that teachers thought most desirable was regularly about 3 to 5 pupils less than the current average! Parents tend to support the teachers'… Read more

We still put children in classes. But we now believe that every child has a right to be taught the things that fit his or her needs, and taught them at the pace and in the manner that fits his or her abilities. These are new responsibilities. The techniques to put them into practice are still being worked out. In this item we look at two very different techniques: Student Team Learning, and Self Paced Instruction.

In both Australia and NZ there has been a great deal of interest in the effects that external examinations have on the subjects taught and the way they are taught in secondary schools. In 1970 Queensland took the plunge, scrapped a final internal exam and introduced internal assessment. How has the experiment faired?
Until 1972, entrance to tertiary institutions in Queensland and selection into many occupations was determined by the applicant's results in an external examination… Read more

In the late 1950s programmed learning was set to revolutionise teaching. B. F. Skinner started the movement in 1954 with a provocative paper entitled 'The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching'.
We are on the threshold of an exciting and revolutionary period, in which the scientific study of man will be put to work in man's best interests. Education must play its part. It must accept the fact that a sweeping revision of educational practices is possible and… Read more