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  • How to knacker a childs education….
  • matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    George Monbiot not holding back.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/07/education-children-not-feral-enough

    I wonder how many adults also need this experience… 😉

    DezB
    Free Member

    Excellent article.

    Pigface
    Free Member

    +1

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    davidtaylforth
    Free Member

    How to knacker a childs education….

    Take them on a skiing holiday in term time?

    kimbers
    Full Member

    wonder how these 2 stories are related

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24433320

    ski
    Free Member

    very interesting, my 10 year old’s class is off to Wales for a week of ‘outdoor education’

    opinion seems to be split right down the middle, with the parents in the playground, I am all for it.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Oh crap. I agree with Moonbat. 🙁

    Incidentally, many, many years ago, I worked as an instructor at a French “classe verte”. A simply wondrous system that the French have in place to get children out in the countryside. Almost certainly teh greatest job satisfaction I have ever had came from getting 8 year old kids from les banlieus of Toulouse to the top of a bluff, from where they could see the mountains, waterfalls, buzzards overhead, etc. Glorious.

    marcus7
    Free Member

    I have to say this is one of the reasons i chose to live in the countryside, its great to be able to get the kids out and picking blackberries,chestnuts etc within 5 mins of leaving the house. I just wish i was better at identifying stuff when the enevitable “daddy what plant is this??” arises.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    A good article read it this morning. Agreed @matt many adults would benefit from this.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    It’s great to get kids out in the great outdoors. I’m afraid it’s not the answer to falling literacy and numeracy skills, no matter how much outdoor instructors might like to think it is.

    Flaperon
    Full Member

    Many had never been to the countryside before and had never seen the sea.

    I don’t see how this can be fixed by education policy. Rounding up the parents and giving them a good hard slap, maybe…

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    davidtaylforth – Member
    Take them on a skiing holiday in term time?

    I know you were trolling a little but friends took their kids (8-13) out of school for a year to travel round the world, they came back and caught up or where ahead of their prior level relative to the class after3 months.

    wors
    Full Member

    I’m afraid it’s not the answer to falling literacy and numeracy skills, no matter how much outdoor instructors might like to think it is.

    I disagree, children can apply numeracy and literacy skills better when it has some use, i.e in the outdoor environment than they can in a classroom.

    freeagent
    Free Member

    My Daughters school have some woodland on their grounds and have built a ‘classroom’ in the woods.
    (more of a circle of logs to sit on, rather than anything formal)
    The reception kids do a whole day every week at ‘forest school’ regardless of the weather.
    As they move through the school they do various other sessions out side.
    Needless to say they all love it, and get loads out of it.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @deadlarcey – I don’t think we are saying it’s the answer to literacy and numeracy skills in itself. Its about a broader education and understanding of the world and of life. if some of the kids get a greater enthusiasm for school as a result then it can only help in the other areas. I would rather kids understand about the environment and where food comes from than be able to read the classics. These kids will shape the future they will be voting for parliament, its good they understand that food doesn’t actually come from a supermarket and that our countryside is valuable and needs protecting.

    cheekyboy
    Free Member

    deadlydarcy – Member

    It’s great to get kids out in the great outdoors. I’m afraid it’s not the answer to falling literacy and numeracy skills, no matter how much outdoor instructors might like to think it is.

    Posted 6 minutes ago #

    With the greatest respect Mr Darcy how on earth can one state this, surely exposure to differing and slightly more stimulating environments must be far more beneficial than the moribund confines of a dull classroom. Boredom is a bright childs biggest hindrance.

    Ro5ey
    Free Member

    Sorry off topic but

    When I showed that they could eat live prawns out of the net they were horrified, but curiosity and bravado conquered disgust, and one after another they tried them. Raw prawns are as sweet as grapes

    I’m no stranger to the coast/rock pools but I didn’t know that.

    Will I die if a try it next time I see a shrimp ?

    spacemonkey
    Full Member

    I couldn’t agree more with Mr GM. Kids need exposure to skills and competencies instead of having them force fed from a textbook or whiteboard.

    … but friends took their kids (8-13) out of school for a year to travel round the world, they came back and caught up or where ahead of their prior level relative to the class after3 months.

    Part of me wants to do something similar when chimp is maybe 8 or 9. Perhaps not travel the world, but certainly take in a few countries/cultures.

    pondo
    Full Member

    Well… I kind of like the sentiment, but I think the best way to knacker a child’s education is to impliment a system that tries its damnedest to get everyone to the same level, rather than teaching them with the idea of getting them to maximise their potential. Set targets, so that schools have to aim for so many As, so many Bs, so many Cs, etc, (so there’s no incentive to push the best, and every incentive to ditch the worst) place the onus of responsibiity entirely on the teachers and remove it in its entirety from the parents, but at the same time give them more frequent and stringent imspections (which place an extra burden of work at random times without adressing what happens when Ofsted aren’t trampling about the place in their dirty great boots), and hang the spectre of performance-related pay over their heads (said performance being that of their pupils, rather than themselves), denigrate teachers in the press, bang a new system of acadamies and free schools in there just to really make the whole thing an untanglable mess of Geordian knot proportions, and you should be good to go.

    ittaika
    Free Member

    Well said Pondo – agree with you there.

    Trying to bring everyone to the one level doesn’t really help in the short or long term.

    Having said that, I think it would be great if more schools did the forest classroom thing as part of the normal school day. Actually, it would be great if they did that at my work (IT office stuff would be almost fun half way up a tree).

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I’m afraid it’s not the answer to falling literacy and numeracy skills, no matter how much outdoor instructors might like to think it is.

    Let us differentiate outdoor instructors from outdoor learning…the two are only vaguely related. Learning away from a desk and (possibly) four walls is what we are speaking about.
    .
    Are you suggesting that sat at a desk completing low-grade admin tasks, in a faux-teamworking and teaching to test manner is a good way of teaching and learning literacy and numeracy?
    .
    Literacy and Numeracy are also NOT the answer to our future skills issues as a nation.
    .
    Sir Ken on why schools are failing and why they fail the pupils..
    http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html
    .
    The author of the Finland Phenomenon film, and a couple of superb books on education and the knowledge economy.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDjh4l-VHo

    And for a brilliant example of how to do so much of this:

    tommytowtruck
    Full Member

    What pondo said.

    tonyd
    Full Member

    In our 2nd or 3rd year at secondary school the whole year went on a semi-compulsory (parents could choose not to send their children but it was frowned upon) field trip to Wales. We went in groups of 10 or so, during term time IIRC, and stayed for a week in a small stone cottage on the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere. The only source of heat was the stove that we (well the teachers) cooked on, the toilet was a bucket in the cowshed nearby that we had to take turns emptying into a freshly dug hole, and we washed in a bathtub that the cows drank out of and was fed directly from the stream that ran through the field.

    If memory serves this was early spring so wasn’t exactly balmy!

    We spent the whole week hiking, navigating, exploring, having fun, and learning. It was without doubt one of the best weeks I spent in my whole childhood and I’ll never forget it.

    I’ve no idea if this helped me get better marks in my exams but IMO every child should have the opportunity to do something like this.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Leaving aside the hyperbole and “cuts rant”, agree with a lot of that. That is why I find it sad that kids are currently under so much artificial “pump your CV” pressure doing internships etc, instead of “being feral”. Screwed up thinking IMO.

    A few years ago I was reported to HR as an internship interviewer because I kept trying to persuade the poor students to go and do something worthwhile rather than spend a summer inside doing my grunt work. HR got VV ANGRY with me!!!!

    muppetWrangler
    Free Member

    very interesting, my 10 year old’s class is off to Wales for a week of ‘outdoor education’

    For what it worth, a week at an outdoor education centre literally changed my life. I grew up in an urban environment with no appreciation of outdoor pursuits. i didn’t want to go on the outdoor pursuits week and couldn’t ever imagine that it would be anything other than torturous.

    On day one of the week in Snowdonia I was the kid at the back of the minibus looking bored out of his skull and wishing the end of the week would arrive as soon as possible, I was not looking to be receptive to the experience. There was no defining moment, but by the time the week had ended something had changed. I went on to sample or take up loads of outdoor sports/activities, introduced a lot of friends to new things and gained a far greater appreciation of the natural environment and the British countryside than had ever looked likely in my younger self

    That week opened up a new world to me that i didn’t know existed and probably did more to define the person I became than the rest of my school days combined. It really would be a wrong if todays kids never found out about something that could enrich their life to such an extent because they never had the opportunity to give it a go.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    muppetWrangler+1

    I can remember *that* day in a boat in Derwentwater at 11, I can remember *that* day up a mountain.
    I remember the future of the world not being a desk and classroom any more – it was an active, engaging job.
    From that day, I could ignore the careers advice and schools agenda, and work to my own ends.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    I would love to hav the timeand spac within the school day or year to do such things, however given the pressureon time and money it will never happen without major changes.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    Todays lieracyness lesson is bought to you by the letter e!

    aracer
    Free Member

    I hate it when Monbiot writes an article like that as it forces me to reassess my opinion of him.

    Did an impromptu science/maths lesson in the park after school yesterday (the kids do get exposed to the countryside as part of school – the park has woods, nettles etc., is right next to the school and they do “forest school” there). Had made a water bottle rocket, and took the ingredients when I picked up my kids. The kids all loved it, but as one of the mums pointed out I was also doing the science lesson bit – when one of the older (Y5?) kids asked how much weight in water I’d carried I got him to work it out.

    ohnohesback
    Free Member

    Have the kids learn to scavenge for scraps and wild foods, it’ll be good training for their future lifestyles.

    Singletrackworld parents obviously aren’t the sort who complian when games lessons are held on the school field and little Johnny’s new trainers get muddy.

    Or take a hotel a couple of miles from the outward bound centre in case Tarquin gets homesick 🙁

    binners
    Full Member

    Oh dear lord! I agree with George Monbiot. I feel violated!

    The sooner he gets back to writing pompous, cloud-cuckoo-land twoddle, the sooner I can settle back into my comfort zone

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    I think its a false comparison to compare current literacy with previous generations. Theres more to eduction now than the 3Rs. Have you seen a primary school time table? The utterly baffling quantity and range of stuff it covers? In lots of ways I think thats better, but doing more of the other stuff means doing less of the core subjects. The breadth is important because we don’t really know what kids today are being prepared for as adults. In much the same way that this forum is a bunch of middle age IT boffins (a job that didn’t exist in the 70s and 80s when were at school- then the core subjects were preparing us to be secretaries and accountants) the jobs that many of these kids will don’t exist yet.

    tonyd
    Full Member

    I would love to hav the timeand spac within the school day or year to do such things, however given the pressureon time and money it will never happen without major changes.

    Assuming you’re a teacher, I’m sure most people would agree that the fault doesn’t lie with schools or teachers but the kind of demands placed on them from the government etc.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    somewhatslightlydazed – Member
    Singletrackworld parents obviously aren’t the sort who complian when games lessons are held on the school field and little Johnny’s new trainers get muddy.

    Or take a hotel a couple of miles from the outward bound centre in case Tarquin gets homesick

    we aren’t individually, but we are that generation. We’re the generation that had stranger danger drummed into us.

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cmm3xhrIvg[/video]

    Unfortunately now we’re a generation of parents we’ve still got the fear we had drummed into us as kids. And irrationally so, the kind of incident we fear is not more or less common than its ever been but the price children have paid is immeasurable and its to everybody’s detriment.

    lister
    Full Member

    Just bumping this. It’s why I do what I do. 🙂

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    Excellent article and as a geography lecturer i wholeheartedly agree withe fieldwork as transformative way of learning. Judging by the reaction of some of our undergrads, however, it seems visiting the countryside isn’t done enough – a good 15-20% of students on our Lake District trip had never walked up a big hill, let alone a mountain.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Must be human geographers Cap’n?

    I took my son to the top of Lingmoor in the Lakes three weeks before his scholarship exam. At the summit, I made him look around and imagine writing a geography essay based in the view – physical features, human features, sustainable development and conflict management (a bus was causing a jam down in Langdale and the quarry was noisy on the way up and then a couple of RAF tornado’s!). Three weeks later he turns over the paper to find one essay question – what is your favourite view? One occassion when it all comes together!

    The warm feeling was lost last week when #2 claimed to prefer human geography. Blasphemy!!!!

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I have to say this is one of the reasons i chose to live in the countryside, its great to be able to get the kids out and picking blackberries,chestnuts etc within 5 mins of leaving the house. I just wish i was better at identifying stuff when the enevitable “daddy what plant is this??” arises.

    Just let them try eating it; what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! 😉
    Seriously, though, I was brought up in the town I still live in, which had a population, in the sixties, of around 19,000, now 55,000-ish. Not only was there a small wood at the top of my street, with a brook running through it, but there was a field alongside the same brook that led to my Sec.Modern school, that more-or-less led straight into open countryside. My dad used to take me on evening walks across the fields, and we’d hunt for sticklebacks, crayfish, bullheads and diving beetles, and he’d tell me the names of the meadow flowers that grew in most of the fields, like Ragged Robin, Ox-eye Daisies, Moon Daisies, Cornflowers, Quaking Grass, (or Wim-Wam Grass, as my dad called it). He’d make whistles out of Willow twigs, and showed me Dipper nests under bridges along the river that runs through the village he was born in.
    Tried teaching me to tickle for trout in the river, but it was so damned cold my hands went numb after five minutes!
    I still spend hours walking the woods and valleys in the same area, around Castle Combe, Ford, and Slaughterford, the things he showed me have stayed with me all my life.
    He was a tool-maker at Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co, but brought up in a tiny village, and he passed on his love of the countryside and everything about it to me.

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    teamhurtmore – Member
    Must be human geographers Cap’n?

    Mixed group of physies and humaners

    I took my son to the top of Lingmoor in the Lakes three weeks before his scholarship exam. At the summit, I made him look around and imagine writing a geography essay based in the view – physical features, human features, sustainable development and conflict management (a bus was causing a jam down in Langdale and the quarry was noisy on the way up and then a couple of RAF tornado’s!). Three weeks later he turns over the paper to find one essay question – what is your favourite view? One occassion when it all comes together!

    The warm feeling was lost last week when #2 claimed to prefer human geography. Blasphemy!!!!

    How dare you! Economic geographer here. Unfortunately for lots of students physical geography at a-level bears little resemblance to physical geography at degree which is physics/chemistry/biology/maths.

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