Teacher by Sylvia Ashton Warner There's even a study guide to the book.It describes some of her methods. And here's a Time article about her. In Spinster, her vivid novel published in 1959, Sylvia Ashton-Warner told of a loving, slightly balmy school teacher who taught Maori children in back-country New Zealand. Spearpoint; teacher in America. By Ashton-Warner, Sylvia. And a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. Teacher by Ashton Warner, First Edition - AbeBooks.
Creative Teaching, 4 Summary and Analysis
Maori Transitional Readers
Sylvia compares her infant reading books to those established by educators. Although her children's infant readers include words and stories that represent sadness and even violence, they successfully form the basis for the children to move onto standard readers. She asks rhetorically if the experts who develop the standard American readers for six-year-old children really think that world peace will result from the depiction of a far-away peaceful society is included in a Maori primer. After a rest period where the children close their eyes for a short period, the children often share their dreams (or thoughts) with Sylvia. She often hears of horrific things going on in their lives, but feels certain that it is better out than in.
The difference of the content in the children's minds and that of the standard reading books...
MICHAEL FIRTH'S 'Sylvia' is a handsome portrait of Sylvia Ashton- Warner, the teacher whose work with Maori children in New Zealand became the basis for her pioneering theories of education. The film covers her experiences as a small-town teacher in the 1940's, presenting a compressed version of events Miss Ashton-Warner later described in her novels and memoirs.The emphasis is on irrepressible creativity, which 'Sylvia' often perceives in the simplest of terms: This is the kind of film in which the heroine discovers an abandoned, run-down cottage in the woods and instantly transforms it into a sweet little studio where she can paint enchanting pictures and write to her heart's content. Miss Ashton-Warner was indeed passionate about art, but the film takes a one-dimensional approach to that side of her nature. On the whole, though, its view of her life is essentially credible and serious. And her story is easily singular enough to make for an interesting and informative film biography.Beginning with footage of the real Miss Ashton-Warner, the film flashes back to scenes of a young Sylvia Henderson - her married name - arriving with her husband and children at their new post. Keith (Tom Wilkinson) is to be the headmaster of this small, remote schoolhouse, and Sylvia is to be one of the teachers.
Still in the process of recovering from a nervous breakdown, Sylvia (Eleanor David) enters cautiously and decorously into her new surroundings. She arrives in the classroom wearing a flowered smock and carrying a little straw basket, only to find herself amidst Maori children who have no interest in an established curriculum concentrating on English conversation and European history.Sylvia quickly gains enough confidence to begin revolutionizing things in the classroom. She lets the children put their desks where they like and encourages them to suggest their own words for reading and spelling practice, as part of what later became her 'or.
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