1963

TEACHER

BY SYLVIA ASHTON-WARNER

Up for your consideration is a very nifty teaching text from the 60’s a time of change in many areas including education.  Item details:

• Measures about 6 x 9”

• Cloth hard cover

• 224 pages

• Photographs and text

• Was in the collection of the University of Massachusetts Boston has library markings and University exlibris

• Some chapters include:

  • Creative teaching

    • Organic reading is not new

    • The key vocabulary

    • Organic writing

    • Organic reading

    • Maori transitional readers

    • The golden section

    • Tone

    • The unlived life

    • Daisy rhythm

  • life in  a Maori school

  • remembering

• preface by Sir Herbert Read

‘Sylvia Constance Ashton-Warner MBE (17 December 1908 – 28 April 1984) was a New Zealand writer, poet and educator. Ashton-Warner was born on 17 December 1908, in Stratford, New Zealand. She spent many years teaching Māori children, using stimulating and often pioneering techniques which she wrote about in her 1963 treatise Teacher (this book listed) and in the various volumes of her autobiography. Her success derived from a commitment to "releasing the native imagery and using it for working material" and her belief that communication must produce a mutual response in order to affect a lasting change. As a novelist, she produced several works mostly centered on strong female characters. Her novel Spinster (1958) was made into the 1961 film Two Loves (also known as The Spinster) starring Shirley MacLaine. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to education and literature in the 1982 Queen's Birthday Honors. Ashton-Warner died on 28 April 1984, in Tauranga. Her life story was adapted for the 1985 biographical film Sylvia, based on her work and writings.’

Everything old is new again!  There are nuggets of educational gold to be gleaned here.  Add it to your library and teaching bag of tricks!  Please contact me if you have any questions.