London Normal School - Spectrum Yearbook (London, Ontario Canada)

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The Future Education of the K[ormalite IT is a common saying that education begins when I our schooling ends. For no class of person is ' this truer than for the teacher. One must be prepared, on entering the profession, for a life of work and of study. The clear-sighted teacher-in- training looks forward to it and prepares accord- ingly. On the other hand there is a large class of people who heave a sigh of relief when the end of their training appears and the prospect of a job looms up. They expect a sinecure and the pro- spect of taking it easy and letting someone else do the work is very pleasant. The only blot on the landscape is the necessity of having to begin Uni- versity work. To these people, teaching is never more than a job and in a few years they are lagging behind their fellow teachers, trying to work with a serious lack of equipment. I do not. think the picture overdrawn, for into my experience, limited though it be, have come a number of teachers who are teaching lessons and not children, and whose main interest is in the monthly pay cheque. To such teachers, the new Program of Studies is not an opportunity, but a disaster, for they are not equipped to meet its re- quirements for 1938 methods, its increased re- cognition of human values, and its demand for greater background on the part of the teacher. The desirable teacher-in-training, essentially an idealist, rejoices that he commences his career under an enlightened system, for he realizes that he is reaping the benefit of methods that have been put into practice for years by experienced teachers before they were issued in the form of a course of study. He does not grumble that he is required to take University work because he in- tended to do so as soon as he could afford it; and he looks forward to the supplementary Education course as an opportunity to repair his pedagogical ground-work, for some of his preconceptions have been shattered by a few years experience. More than that, he likes to think of having money of his own (little though it may be) with which to indulge in his fondness for reading, both books and periodicals, and he hopes to build up a specialized knowledge in some field in which he has par- ticular interest. He does not flinch when faced with the prospect of full time service in his chosen work. Happy indeed is the teacher who is an incurable idealist, provided his idealism is tem- pered with practical purpose and common sense. There is no more interesting person to meet than a teacher who is in love with his work, and who has not lost his idealism. In many places the school teacher is looked upon as an authority on all and sundry subjects. In some places it may be that the teacher is the only person in the community who could possibly aspire to such a position. It is true, however, that he cannot for long pose as such unless he really is an authority. This immediately directs our attention to the question of reading, a subject on which it is easy to become dogmatic, simply because there are such definite principles involved. One of these is, that only when the teacher is a lover of good literature and enjoys reading, can she inspire in her pupils a desire to read. It is not a process of easy contagion, but it is certain that the teacher cannot infect the pupils with attitudes that she herself does not have. This is a principle every Normalite has become familiar with, but its truth seems to have become obscured in this connection. Descending from the realm of attitudes to that of knowledge, we quote an idea that Normalites will appreciate, namely, that if we are teaching too near the edge of our knowledge, we are in serious danger of falling over. It seems to me that a teacher ' s success may depend in a great measure upon the width of this margin. The other great factor is methodology, and here, too, education is never complete. No meth- ods are infallible. In time they all give way to revised forms or entirely new methods. In this field the educated teacher is a little ahead of his time, while he whose training stopped upon his graduation from Normal School is tagging along like Dopey, the seventh dwarf, making feeble and ludicrous attempts at imitation of his fellows. Further prolixity would only defeat the pur- pose of these observations, and conclusion is easily drawn. Unless one is in love with teaching, has a continuous educative process in himself, and is able to learn from those he is teaching, he has missed his calling and were better off anywhere else than in this noblest of professions, but sorriest of trades. —Earle Sanborn. In Our Day AS we people of the older generation look back on our own school days, now far distant, we cannot help but compare the school of our day with the school of to-day. We cannot re- strain a feeling of something like scorn for these weaklings of modern children who have to be coddled and babied. With this scorn is mingled a bit of envy and jealousy of these same children who have so much more than we even dreamed of, in the little brick school-house. I am quite sure that no one was ever concerned as to whether we were developing useful abilities and desirable attitudes. The knowledge was given to us, sometimes useful knowledge, some- times not. But, as for these abilities and attitudes why, the teacher would have been as surprised to hear of them as we Normal students were! If she ever discovered that any of her pupils had not the abilities she thought proper, her method of coping with the situation would, you may be sure, be quite different from that advised to-day. Let me quote from the Course of Study, The Minister urges the Inspectors to discourage . . . . unreasonable requirements in the matter of home- work for pupils in the elementary school. These children. . . . must have time for rest and recrea- tion. And all this for a generation of children Page Twenty-eight

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Editor ' s Note: — Of the many fine articles submitted, we have chosen those which seemed best suited to Normal School Activities and hence to the Normal School Year Book. Mr. Clarke, in addition to giving valuable assistance in the criticism and selection of the essays, has chosen two of his finest repro- du ction stories to complete the essay section. The Place of Literature and Art in a Materialistic World A A. MILNE defines an artist as anyone who has ever attempted to create something beautiful. In the category of artists he places you and me, too, if only, as he says, We have ever written four lines on the sunset in some- body ' s album or even modelled a Noah ' s Ark in plasticine. All of us then are artists in some measure. We may refuse to admit it. We may tell ourselves impatiently that the time we spent trying to sketch a landscape or struggling to ex- press an idea in smoothly flowing English was wasted. But it will be of no use. As long as we continue to gaze with delight at the first snow, to dream dreams before the fireplace and to stand in awe before the winter sunset we are artists cultivating our love for the beautiful. But this, we are reminded on all sides, is a materialistic world. There is no time for the cultivation of an artistic sense in ourselves — no place for artists in the world. For what place can there be for Literature and Art in a world where, The wealthiest man among us is the best — where to commit crime makes one front page news and to write a good book entitles one to a brief paragraph on the back page— where headlines such as Austrian Nazis gird for fight and Japanese planes bomb the Nanchang Airdrome, indicate materialism gone mad in another world war. And yet in our more thoughtful and less troubled moments we are only too willing to grant Literature and Art a place in the scheme of things, for they represent the genuine progress which we have made toward civilization. Good books and pictures are store-houses o f beauty and in what seems at times a very ugly world it is well to have conveniently at hand a store-house of beauty. Keats characterizes all beautiful things as, Flowery bands to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth, Of noble natures, of the gloomy days Made for our searching. It behooves us then to search for the beautiful to find the flowery band that can make life endurable. Where do we find beauty in such rich quantities as in the poetry of Keats, the prose of Mary Webb and pictures of Corot? And perhaps because they have caught up and held for us the beauty of the world, Literature and Art promote faith. A love of beauty is insepar- able from a love of goodness. It is not an accident that our Christian faith is linked with the best in Literature and Art. Portions of the Bible are among the finest in Literature. How many people depressed and embittered by the materialistic have read with a sense of comfort and power the beauti- ful lines of Isaiah, Trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. And our Christian faith has associated itself with great Art as well as with great Literature. A study of Raphael ' s Sistine Madonna and Holman Hunt ' s Light of the World cannot but promote faith. Not only do Literature and Art promote divine relationship, but they also promote happy relationships among human beings. Good books and good pictures are interests common to most of us. We find it stimulating to discuss them with our friends — to try to evaluate Canadian Art — to criticize current fiction — to wonder if An- thony Adverse and Gone with the Wind are really great books or only long ones and to reread (with an eye perhaps to seeing the moving pic- tures) a Midsummer Night ' s Dream and the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet . Our discussions are happy, interesting, invigorating ones. Book and Art Clubs everywhere testify to our enjoy- ment of them. And Literature and Art promote this happy relationship not only because they provide common ground for enthusiasms, but, and this is far more important, because they help us to understand each other. In books and in pic- tures we see, through the eyes of someone far wiser than ourselves, our friends and our enemies too. The dissolute Sydney Carton, the incom- petent Dora Copperfield, the happy-go-lucky Mr. Micawber all have their charm and when after a perusal of A Tale of Two Cities or David Cop- perfield we see the replicas of these characters in every-day life we are apt to view them with a kindlier and less impatient eye than before. As for friends — to see their wit, their good temper, all the qualities for which we love them { Continued on page 30 Page Twenty-seven

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who know increasingly little about anything except play. In our day, children had definite work to be done after school — hoeing, carrying wood, and such. We children certainly did not believe as Dr. Dearness who, in advising parents to give their children definite tasks, made this statement, Blessed be chores. So, there was usually very- little time for this rest and recreation. Yet, on top of this we always had homework to do. And woe to him who came to school next day without it done! Alas! alas! we had no beautifully mounted history pictures to impress upon our plastic minds the Landing of Jacques Cartier and The Death of Wolfe. No sand-tables revealed to us the my- steries of islands, rivers and mountains. Neither were nature excursions the order of the day. We learned the characteristics of the Maple, the Jack Pine and the Spruce without disturbing those trees at all. We were given repeatedly those frpwned- upon assignments, Look it up in your book or Get up this chapter for next day. Nor did we have The Joy Books or The Science Readers to beguile us with their entrancing little stories so cunningly padding small chunks of knowledge. There was no music in that little brick school- house for there was no piano, and pitch-pipes and rote-songs had not found their way to us. No doctor came at the correct intervals to inoculate us. No nurse or dentist was at our service. Far from it! Nevertheless, we survived, even grew and thrived on this unseemly school-life. And behold! what now we are. But ah! with a sigh we think what we might have been. — Marion Roberts. On Teaching Wee THERE were four of us to catch the taxi at eight- thirty on that cold winter morning; two were bound for Mr. Rigney ' s school and two for Mrs. Paterson ' s. I hurried up Wortley Road, where the taxi-driver stood waiting by his cab to take us to the country. As I stepped forward to get into the taxi, a huge, shaggy, brown dog jumped past me and calmly took his place on the back seat. I hung back and eyed the canine distastefully. Did I have to sit beside him? However, there was nothing to do but climb in. The first passenger, already in the front seat, looked back and on see- ing my seatmate greeted him with, Hello Bozo! When the other two students arrived I gave Bozo a gentle push and moved over beside him. The taxi driver shut the door, took his own seat, started the car, and we were off. What an uncomfortable ride! We gave that clumsy creature as wide a berth as possible. He lolled expansively on the cushions and thoroughly enjoyed the congenial atmosphere. But we, we suffered in silence, mentally berating the cab com- pany that would allow its drivers to take their pets with them. At last we reached Mr. Rigney ' s school where the two boys alighted, one from the front seat and the other from the back. The remainder of the trip was made in comparative comfort and if we could have heaved that dog over the back of the front seat and landed him beside his master we should have been perfectly happy. At Mrs. Paterson ' s school my teaching part- ner and I stepped out of the car. The dog slipped past us and ran across the schoolyard. My partner called him back, while I held the car door open. The driver seemed unconcerned. She called again, then turning to him said, — Whose dog is this, anyway? Surprised, the man said to me, Isn ' t it yours? In dazed wonderment I answered, — We thought it belonged to you. With a shrill whistle and Here, here! , he called our canine companion back to the taxi, muttering, — We carry all kinds of concrete material. — Esther Leaman. Expiation ALL his life he had hated the sea and had avoided it. From childhood its utter vast- ness and the terror of its mountainous waves had gripped him. Now he was at its mercy. Toward evening, the west wind had suddenly come to life with a sullen roar and beneath it gigan- tic seas had built up with incredible speed. In no time at all the gale was full. The ship staggered in the great welters of blinding wind and water, climbing the towering waves and then slipping down into the yawning grey valleys beneath. Sleet shot over her tall masts; the screaming of the gale was shrill with menace; on all sides was the deep booming of the ocean. At midnight he stood by the rail with the rest of the passengers, the stark terror of his soul re- vealed in his eyes. They said the ship was sink- ing. Sinking! Then he was to go out into the midst of that desolate and forbidding waste where the sea boiled and seethed like molten pitch? Those black tortured waves were to seize him and he would go down, down. They were lowering the boats now. Women and children first. This was the last boat. Room for one more, the captain was saying. He was searching in the mass of upturned frightened faces for the man who would occupy the coveted vacancy. One figure by the rail attracted the captain ' s attention. It was that of a man struggling to reach the boat. Whimpering and sobbing, he was pushing and clawing at those about him like a wild beast. To go down, down .... no space to move in, no space to breathe in. No — no; he couldn ' t. Dear God — this was his chance! Suddenly he was at the boat ' s edge. An old grey-haired man was about to get in. What was the matter with everyone — didn ' t they under- stand? This was to be his place, his only chance. He jostled the old man aside and clambered into the boat. No time to wait. As the boat was { Continued on page 30 Page Twenty-nine