USP students

look back . . .

From The South Pacific: Profiles In Human Experience.

Edited by Robert A. C.

Stewart. Published by Exten sion Services, the University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji, 1980. 179 pp. Fs3. No ISBN.

A profile, for the purpose of this collection, is defined as ‘a short narrative that relates to a mean ingful event, experience, or aspect of growth, development or behaviour in life’. Robert Stewart’s volume contains 51 such profiles, grouped in terms of the stages of human develop ment: infancy, childhood, ado lescence and adulthood.

The profiles were written by students in human development at the University of the South Pacific as part of their course requirements. The aim of the exercise was to give ‘writer and reader deeper insight into the nature of development and be haviour’, and to help the students by adding ‘flesh and blood’ to their more general and academic studies of normal human development. And in this they succeed, admirably.

The writers’ anonymity is protected since no profile is directly credited to any one author a list of contributors can be found in the acknowledg ments. So the narratives are vivid, personal, poignant and very frank. , The stories admirably sup- P lement the more academic l> te f ature usually required in suc ' l classes and illustrate, in y human terms, jusl what human development in a Pacific * s a h about. If future y°‘ umes are contemplated, and hope they are, I have just one suggestion of a n editorial nature. Each profile is intro duced by its title only the country of origin is listed in the table of contents. This means that readers who enjoy guessing games can have great fun, as they read each profile, in at tempting to identify the writer’s origin. But if you like to know before you read a story where it originates, you have to be con tinually flipping back to the table of contents. I would have preferred to have the writer’s home island listed with the title

to each profile. -

Jane Ritchie.