set 1985 : no. 1

Secondary schools can be organized in a variety of ways. A whanau organization subdivides a large school into largely self-contained units or whanaus to gain the social advantages of a small school while retaining the curriculum flexibility of the large school. The social objectives of promoting caring relationships and a sense of belonging are embodied in the name whanau, meaning extended family. The manner in which whanaus have given expression to this varies in detail but they have in… Read more

The comment that predicting the future is hazardous (as any gambler knows) has been made so often that it is trite. Yet there is a need to look at the possible social outcomes of particular policies, especially when we have limited resources to invest. The problem is that, unlike the physical sciences, the social sciences have no established formulae on which to base their predictions. Human beings are delightfully unpredictable! But there are some things that are fairly certain. Many… Read more

Society accepts violent behaviour and it is modelled in homes, schools and streets. This accepting and modelling is the major cause of violent crime. This is no longer supposition but fact, supported by a heavy weight of evidence. Consider, specifically, corporal punishment in schools. Here is a situation where beneficial change can take place. Evidence is available which suggests that helping teachers to relinquish corporal punishment in schools significantly changes community
… Read more

At Dunedin Teachers College, all students who graduate with a B.Ed. degree are required to carry out an independent
research study as part of their programme. This study (known as Teaching Practice B) is a small-scale piece of research conducted in a classroom setting and dealing with a topic which the student, through a combination of reading and practice, considers to be relevant and important. Guidance comes from the staff of the Teachers College and the Education Department of the… Read more

Most of what we know about children comes from watching carefully what they do. Proud parents entertain their friends - or bore them out of their minds - with the latest tales of their offspring's achievements. Just as frequently we discuss some 'problem', often asking a simple question such as, 'when did your child begin to walk?' or, 'when do they stop sucking their thumbs?' Teachers often ask more complex questions such as how children of a certain age can be expected to interact with… Read more

There are two main traditions in the psychology of reading. The most familiar tradition is educational, based on the study of children learning to read: its theoretical base is in the theories of learning that were so dominant a feature of academic psychology in the 1940s and 50s. The second tradition is neurological, stemming from the observations of neurologists around the turn of the century about specific reading impairments resulting from localised injury to the brain. This tradition… Read more

How is the teacher to convert these private worries into informed and constructive thinking? It seems to be assumed that the two crucial components of education on nuclear issues are to increase knowledge about nuclear weapons and strategies, and to arouse an appropriate level of concern about the dangers inherent in their deployment. I suggest, from the point of view of a psychologist, (i) that these two steps raise problematic issues, and (ii) that the ability to think critically about… Read more

If you ask a manager what he does, he will most likely tell you that he plans, organizes, co-ordinates, and controls. The fact is that these four words, which have dominated management vocabulary since the French industrialist Henri Fayol first introduced them in 1916, tell us little about what managers actually do. At best, they indicate some vague objectives managers have when they work. My intention in this article is simple: to break the reader away from Fayol's words and introduce him… Read more

One of the distinctive marks of reading programmes in New Zealand schools is the extent to which story-reading is used in the classroom. Recent surveys show that most primary school children expect, and usually get, 15 to 30 minutes a day sharing a story with their teacher, as a recreational or an instructional activity. Indeed the Shared Book Experience technique of teaching reading with its bedside story atmosphere, its 'Blown-Up' (enlarged) books and its follow-up activities is a… Read more

As soon as we consider teaching about Race Relations we strike a dilemma: how to promote desirable values and still let the children learn for themselves. Trying to persuade children to believe what we believe interferes with the possibility of them constructing their own answers; in providing ready made answers we close down questions rather than opening them up.