She recognizes the relevance of contemporary teaching reading approach in eliciting children’s minds and in making them more active learners instead of passive receivers in the teaching-learning process. Her contribution to the educational arena has been widely recognized because not only the teachers could benefit from them but most especially the children who need to develop cognitively, emotionally, and socially in order to function well as individuals instead of becoming liabilities to the society.Īshton-Warner’s Educational PhilosophyAshton-Warner is known for her “Creative Teaching Scheme” in which her knowledge about pedagogy and children is evident. She advocates a student-centered educational method which is indeed a more effective means of teaching children to be independent, responsible, and task-driven and goal oriented learners. She has addressed issues on civilization and education in old cultures that have become applicable in the modern times and showed that it is possible to change for the better through her works in relation to pedagogy (Gunton, 1981, p. Her educational philosophy, stimulating insights, and personality have caught the interest of many educators and authors especially in the academe. Her years of teaching Maori children in “Infant (elementary) School” has given her the chance to develop educational methods that she wrote in the treatise Teacher in 1963 and in successive volumes of her autobiography in 1967, 1972, and 1979 (Columbia Encyclopedia, 2004).

Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1905–1984) is a New Zealand British novelist and educator.

Teacher by Sylvia Ashton-Warner