Discovery

Science Teaching in Early New Zealand

Dr Lydia Austin

In the early days of New Zealands colonisation, teachers and the facilities they had were very different from today. Despite the difficult conditions under which they worked, there were many excellent science teachers, even among those who had no university qualifications or who had degrees in other subjects.

One of the earliest science teachers was Robert Huntley, who ran his own private school in Wellington from about 1849. His students learnt botany by working in the school's garden, and the boys were expected to tell the time from a sundial. On Saturdays and holidays he would take boys who had worked well on field trips where they studied birds, plants, seaweed, insects, rocks and lizards. Samples were taken back for the school collection. Two cases of specimens were sent to the Paris Exhibition as a contribution from young Wellington.

This was a very different experience from that of many other students who, until much later, learnt experimental science without doing any experiments. The examination system required only rote memory, and practical work not only took time but also needed equipment which was expensive to ship from Home. Nevertheless, some teachers struggled under great difficulties to give their students some experience of practical science, if only as demonstrations.

Mr Howlett, affectionately known as Jimmy to the boys of Nelson College, taught science from 1876 in a lean-to classroom open to the north. So many boys wanted to learn that there was no space to allow the younger boys to do any more than watch demonstrations.

Then, as now, the boys' behaviour would sometimes get out of hand. When their high jinks got the better of him Mr Howlett would fly into a rage and beat them unmercifully. He was always remorseful afterwards and gave them cookies and cigarettes. As time went by, facilities were improved, and the lean-to was replaced by the fitting up of a boot room as a laboratory and lecture room.

Girls' schools often had great difficulty finding suitably qualified women science teachers, and they had to resort to employing men who, more often than not, also taught in the local boys' school.

Mr Pope, who taught in Otago Boys' High School, also taught science, mathematics and English in the girls' school down the street from 1873 to 1876. He had no university degree and was utterly unconventional. He wore a big coat with gigantic side pockets, into which the girls would drop apples, cakes and sweets as they handed in their books. He never acknowledged these presents but would munch away in the intervals between teaching. His rationale for teaching science to girls was that it was "the only way to make them less bird-witted".

In the 1890s, the girls of Auckland Girls Grammar did not take chemistry because the headmaster, Mr Tibbs, claimed it spoiled their dresses. They did not study electricity and magnetism either, since Tibbs considered these were not feminine subjects. Tibbs himself taught them mechanics, which they heartily disliked; of hydrostatics he said they "entertain a dread which is fairly suggestive of hydrophobia". However they did like the botany teaching of the enthusiastic Mr Marshall. Tibbs thought that botany was better suited to the feminine temperament.

Teachers no longer beat students when their "high spirits" might tempt them to do so, and they certainly do not offer students cigarettes! Today's teachers take great pains to ensure that girls have the same opportunities to study science as boys and there is greater pool of competent women science teachers than in the past. But some things change very little. Although considerably better supported than in the past, under-resourcing continues to be a fact of life for many of today's science teachers, particularly in primary schools. Science teachers of today, as in the past, not only continue to successfully encourage many students to take up careers in science but they also help all students to appreciate something of the fascination of science.

Lydia Austin works in the Education Department of Auckland University.