WRONG THINGS TO TEACH Sut,—R. R. Hopkins writes: "A week
or so ago I played a portion of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony on records to an audience of 150 young people of the 14-19 age-group. Not a single one recognised the music. What education is this? " The answer, I suggest, is that it is the eduzation that follows a long period of the parsimony that makes - very large classes almost inevitable and a personal relationship between teacher and child usually impossible.
Until much smaller classes have been the rule for so long that children educated in small classes themselves become the majority of teachers, and until we have raised in this way and, through improved salary scales, enough good teachers to deal with the whole child population in classes small enough to allow personal friendship between teachers and children, the best things in our cultural heritage will be only handed on to a few lucky individuals of the next generation, for this handing on is mainly
Previous page
