The next day she would put all the words from the previous day and ask the children to find their word. He describes the way she would invite children to choose a word each day, she would write it on a large card and then teach them how to write it. Mike Pegg, the author of the Positive Encourager, has a whole page on his website devoted to Sylvia Ashton Warner and her pioneering approach to education. Warner realised that unless the children had a connection with the vocabulary they were learning they would not remember it. Warner and her husband, Keith, taught in rural Maori Schools in Horoera (East Cape), Pipiriki (Wanganui River) and Fernhill (Hawkes Bay). She particularly applied this to learning to read. She had a firm philosophy that children only learned when they had an emotional connection with what they were learning. From the Te Ara entry įortunately for the children she taught, Warner was able to bring her creativity to the classroom not only in her amazing illustrations created on the blackboard but also in her pedagogy. Warner had aspirations to be an artist or a writer – or even a concert pianist and felt that teaching would prevent her from fulfilling her creative potential.

The family had to move from place to place throughout New Zealand as her mother found employment. Her mother had been a teacher and the sole income earner for her large family. This was a memoir about her life as a teacher, a profession which Warner was very reluctant to enter.

I read “Teacher” (1963) by Sylvia Ashton Warner, while at secondary school and found it inspirational.

Teacher by sylvia ashton warner