Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from July, 2013

A chapter on Pedagogy

I have spent much of the holidays writing in the quiet of the domed LaTrobe reading room at the State Library where Snugglepot & Mr. Goanna welcome visitors. Ernst had begun to teach at a time when educational ideas were changing. Frank Tate, Director of Education (1902-1939), argued against the old painful ‘unintelligent memory methods that weren’t true teaching’ and suggested that the new programme should aim ‘at training self reliance and ability to acquire knowledge at first hand’. The revised program (1902) consisted of nature study (elemental) science, manual training (brushwork, paperwork, or school gardening), drawing (including geometry, freehand and use of compass, ruler, mid set square), singing, health and special lessons reading and explanation, composition, word building and spelling, penmanship, map-drawing, geography, parsing, analysis and derivative roots, poetry, tables, arithmetic, measuration, history and exploration lessons. There was opposition to the '