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

Page 7 text:

Your year has been crammed with courses of study, and with methods in a full dozen subjects. It is natural then that you should leave here feeling that education is a business which is complicated indeed. At such a time it is worth thinking back to those clays when schooling was a simple thing. It is said that the Persians thought that there were only three things worth teaching a boy. He had to learn how to ride, how to aim a bow, and how to tell the truth. Compare that to our pre- sent courses of study! Yet if we reflect a bit, we shall see that, although their means of education were different than ours, the educational goals towards which the ancients strove were the same as our goals of to-day. The danger is that we teachers of 1950 will get our minds so cluttered up with means that we may lose sight of the ends. We may miss the forest because of too many trees. In their teaching of the young these men of old time worked towards three goals. They taught boys to ride, because in their world horsemanship was essential for earning a living. They taught boys to shoot, because they felt that everyone had to bear his share of the burdens of society, to do his part towards the common good. They taught boys to tell the truth, because only by telling the truth can a man be happy. Only by living the truth can he live at peace within himself. Much water has flowed down the Euphrates since those warriors dwelt along its banks. The techniques — the means — of society have grown stupendously, and with them the schools have kept pace in their courses of study. But the ends of education remain the same — to earn one ' s living efficiently, to take one ' s share of the duties of citizenship, and to live happily within oneself. You will soon be absorbed in the complicated business of modern education. While this big buzzing confusion is all around you, stop to think once in a while of the three real reasons why you are in your job. You are there — just as the masters of the Persian youth were there — to help children grow into good workmen-, good citizens, and good persons. F. C. BIEHL, B.A., B. Paed. Principal -5-

Page 6 text:

As you enter the teaching profession next September, certain features of the revised curriculum will be introduced in the schools. The new reading programme in (he primary and junior divisions, and the new emphasis upon conservation and map using in the intermediate division are among the changes you will meet in the classrooms. You may also encounter some experimental groups in which the three age levels of primary pupils are represented. Effort has been made to prepare you for these changes during your year in the Normal School, and it is my hope that you will meet success in adapting the programme to the needs of your pupils. But no curriculum is better than the teacher who presents it. You who are graduating from the Normal Schools will maintain, I am confident, the high tradition of faithful, intelligent service established by your fellow-teachers in Ontario. May you experience in the years ahead not only the joy of teaching, but the satisfaction that comes from worthwhile work well done. DANA PORTEB Minister of Education -4-

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Discipline is the means whereby children are trained in orderliness, good conduct, and the habit of getting the best out of themselves. The crucial test of its soundness is whether it represents a real sense, on the part of the children, of the Tightness of be- haviour that is expected of them. It cannot be considered good unless it is founded upon worthy ideas of conduct that are becoming, or have become, embedded in the children ' s characters. London. England: Board of Education: Handbook of Suggestions. B. H. ROBERTS. M. . When difficulties appear on that road of life which you must travel to reach the goal which you have set or will set for yourself, do not slop or turn back just because the prospect of going forward ma be fright- ening. Just remember then my story of the wolves and what they turned out to be — for those frighten- ing difficulties of yours may turn out to he nothing more difficult than barrels of water! J. F. KIN LIN, B. A., B. Paed.