33
Notes on Kindergarten and Transition classes for Children of 5 to 8 years of age at Stanley Internment Camp, Hong Kong, September 1942
to July 1945.
Note: Before September 1942 these classes were combined with the
Junior School classes.
These notes were compiled as the result of discussions held in July 1945 by the School staff and two members of the Junior School staff. The objects were:-
A.
B.
C.
To estimate the extent to which the children's education, physical, mental and social, had suffered by reason of their internment.
To discover any compensations internment may have held for the children.
As a result of our teaching experience in Camp to make suggestions that might be of help in solving educational problems in Hong Kong in future.
In comparing the education of the children in Camp with what it would have been in Hong Kong under normal conditions, we realised that the children fell into groups, European, Eurasian, and other Racial Admixtures, that there would normally have been, both in their home and school training, considerable divergencies any that in comparison, some children suffered to a greater extent than others.
In
Early in 1943 the figures given by the Medical Officer were European 21, Mixed Race 35, of whom 11 were European-Chinese. the Summer of 1945 they were European 27, Mixed Race 32.
441
Physical: Conditions adversely affecting the children's physical
development and training were housing, including the housing of the school, food and clothing.
(a) Housing conditions varied from one part of the Camp to another in the type of building and the size of the rooms, but in all there was gross overcrowding. Most children belonged to families large enough to ensure of their being over-crowded exclusively by their own relations, but not every family had a room to itself. In 1945 of 59 children, 27 belonged to families with 3 or more children, and 16 to families with 2 children. Furniture and ordinary household utensils were scarce or lacking altogether. The se conditions were not conducive to good health or the formation of desirable habits.
The School was housed in the Social Hall. Most of the glass was missing from windows and doors. When this was replaced by cardboard and wood to keep out the wind and wet, the light also was excluded. Furniture consisted of seven backless benches, later reduced to six, a sideboard, an easel and a few blackboards.