The Colonial Dept 1927-1953

Lyn Skinner : student 1949/50

Lyn recalls the useful advice offered to him on teaching, particularly how to make science lessons memorable:

"I remember that when I was at the Institute of Education Mr Harrison, the lecturer on teaching methods, who was a very down-to-earth sort of chap, told us things that were very useful. For example, he said that if you have a boisterous class of boys, 10-year olds, you don’t spend your time turning your back on them. He said the thing to do is to write half a sentence and then swiftly turn round and you will catch the boy who is throwing the pellets at the other boys.  He also said something like this: ‘Suppose in a science lesson you want to give a demonstration to the whole class on the loss of weight of a body immersed in water, as discovered by Archimedes.  Don’t dip a little brass weight in a teacupful of water. Do it on as big a scale as you can. Dip a brick in a bucket of water’.   In Ghana, when I taught some training college students, I remembered this advice.  I decided to do a demonstration about oxygen and combustion. No relighting a glowing splinter of wood in a test tube full of oxygen would do.  Instead I stuck a piece of burning sulphur the size of a walnut into a three litre flask of oxygen.  The result was spectacular. In an instant the flask was transformed into a brilliant white hot ball of fire. In the same instant the whole class vanished under their benches. The following week I said I proposed to set fire to a tin can filled with hydrogen. As one man they took to their heels before I could strike a match. I thought that they had rather untrusting natures and that it was best not to dwell on what Mr. Harrison’s comments might have been if he had been observing my lecture."

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