Sylvia Ashton-Warner centenary

"The organic behaviour.

Spontaneous dancing. There is more music in these children than flesh and blood.

By organic, I mean that way of growth where the strongest thing pushes up ahead of the less strong. I think of trees growing in a clump. The strongest get to the light.

In speaking of a child’s mind I mean the strongest impulses push up, irrespective of whether or not they should, at any given time ... Education fundamentally is the increase of the percentage of the conscious in relation to the unconscious.

A child does’nt make his own mind. Its just there. Your job is to see what’s in it. Your only allowable comment is one of natural interest."


This year, 2008, marks the birth centenary of a dedicated teacher, novelist and educational philosopher, Sylvia Ashton-Warner (December 17, 1908 - April 28, 1984). Sylvia Ashton-Warner pioneered a method of teaching reading and writing to Maori children. This is described in her book Teacher, which is a classic of educational philosophy. I had read Teacher in 1984. Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Sylvia Ashton-Warner's book - helped me to know what I wanted to do in my life.

After a teaching career in rural schools she achieved international fame as a novelist and educational philosopher. She was committed to "releasing the native imagery and using it for working material" and recognised, well before others, the importance of building on the language and knowledge children already have.

While largely ignored in her native New Zealand, she was widely recognised throughout the world for her revolutionary ideas on teaching. The library of the Faculty of Education in the University of Auckland was named after Sylvia Ashton-Warner in 1987. Read an article on Ashton-Warner published in Time magazine in 1963 here.

The Faculty of Education and The Faculty of Arts at The University of Auckland, New Zealand, will mark the centennial of the birth of Sylvia Ashton-Warner by hosting an international conference during 9-10 August 2008. The conference is an opportunity for scholars, writers, literary critics, teachers and others to celebrate and discuss the work of this extraordinary woman.

In Talimi Haq School, 3 year old children are taught Urdu following the method pioneered by Ashton-Warner, which begins with each child receiving a small card with his or her name written on it. And thus begins the process of discovering the child's organic vocabulary, which becomes the subject of reading and writing.

The book Teacher is accessible here (zip file).

The Hindi translation of Teacher, by Purva Kushwaha Yagnik, is accessible here (pdf).