Here's The Times for the full story. The thing is, if school kids weren't closetted away in a classroom, surrounded only by their own peer group, they most likely would know how to do this already. The question that springs to mind...why try to solve a problem that there were dubious reasons for creating in the first place?
And how are the Professional Teachers from their Association going to solve this predicament? Where, after all, are they going to get bundles of willing babies to be handed out to a classroom of teens? Hmmm...already sounds as if they are missing the point.
One of the very striking things about most home educated kids is that they do know how to care for younger children. Young girls spend long periods with dolls stuck up their shirts and telling people to sush because dolly is napping. Boys walk real-life toddlers through pedestrian precincts and lift them up to look in windows. Same boys help with feeding, changing nappies and playing footie. What is more, they know that you have to have a proper, trusting relationship with infants, which of course is not something that happens in a one hour lesson.
A proper understanding of what it means to be responsible for a child can't possibly be learnt in a classroom and is yet another vivid example of how schools can impoverish learning.
I barely know how to start with this. Why don't we just start by having babies and handing them over to schools? Then they could be used to teach older children how to look after them, and just raised there. Schools would be the new families.
ReplyDeleteOr how about, more sensibly, we take our children back from schools!
It seems to me that we need to fix the world, not fix the children.
ReplyDeleteChange our towns and villages back into communities instead of dormitories and war zones, have people live and work in those communities and they will be surrounded by opportunities to learn the kind of important things Lynn Edwards mentioned as well as having people around them to fall back on for help when they get stuck.
I agree completely Jax and Tim. As regards working in a community, I could SOOO easily have taken Ds to work with me today. He would have loved this, been a great help AND learned some useful skills to boot. What a shame this is not easily managed.
ReplyDeletewould love to hear your thoughts on this guardian article
ReplyDeleteWhao, Jax...there's a book in that one! A gripping question. I will definitely come back to it.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts precisely - I'm planning a response, be interesting to see yours too.
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