Monday, 13 January 2014

Less education, more play

Children playSince my kids were at school, many moons ago, I’ve been highly sensitive to the need to challenge the obsessive over-regulation of childhood generally and school time in particular. So thank you Peter Gray in today’s Indy for a forceful and knowledgeable articulation of the arguments.

His article reviews the human value of play and its social importance, then reflects on the significant reduction over a couple of generations in the amount of time children have to play. Gray notes that these changes

‘have been caused by a constellation of social factors, including the spread of parents’ fears, the rise of experts who are continuously warning us about dangers, the decline of cohesive neighbourhoods and the rise of a school-centric, or ‘schoolish’, take on child development – the view that children learn more from teachers and other adult directors than they do from one another.’

Apparently this dramatic decline in children’s opportunities to play ‘has been accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in childhood mental disorders:’

‘research indicates that empathy has been declining and narcissism increasing, ever since valid measures of these were first developed in the late 1970s.’

Successive governments, feeding the peculiar ambitions of many parents and also being encouraged by those aspirations, have insisted more and more fervently on regulating, controlling and managing a high proportion of children’s lives.

And yet:

‘The most important skills that children everywhere must learn in order to live happy, productive, moral lives are skills that cannot be taught in school. Such skills cannot be taught at all. They are learned and practised by children in play. These include the abilities to think creatively, to get along with other people and cooperate effectively, and to control their own impulses and emotions…

‘We no longer need people to follow directions in robot-like ways (we have robots for that), or to perform routine calculations (we have computers for that), or to answer already-answered questions (we have search engines for that). But we do need people who can ask and seek answers to new questions, solve new problems and anticipate obstacles before they arise. These all require the ability to think creatively. The creative mind is a playful mind.’

I will be pondering all this more deeply, but I have to pop out shortly to pick up a friend’s children from school, let them loose on a few games for an hour, then ferry them to a tennis lesson…

 

13 Jan 2014 14:27:23

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Shopping around Just in case I sometimes give the impression that I should get out more, here are two curious observations from recent visits to shops. Last week I was in one of the aisles in Sainsbury’s at a fairly quiet time. Out of the corner of my eye, at 90 degrees to my left, I noticed a member of staff patrolling beside the counters, as they do. I knew it was a member of staff because of the dark purple-red uniform. What caught my attention was that this person was doing a goose step, let us hope it was just in a moment of unthinking relaxed boredom. Very disconcerting. And today I was in an Oxfam shop and noticed a screen exhibiting the fact that security cameras were in use. I use charity shops a good deal but perhaps I have not been paying attention: this is the first time I’ve ever noticed a security camera. That too was disconcerting. Is it widespread, in charity shops?
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The capture of opportunities by the rich at the expense of the rest Some people think that Bill Gates is a jolly decent chap because he gives some of his wealth away. This is the same perverse thinking that celebrates philanthropy as it disempowers people in poverty. I’d like to live in a society where people question the systems and structures that allow half of the world’s wealth to be owned by just one percent of the population. The Oxfam report which publicises this statistic (speaking truth to Davos) makes the point: ‘Some economic inequality is essential to drive growth and progress, rewarding those with talent, hard earned skills, and the ambition to innovate and take entrepreneurial risks. However, the extreme levels of wealth concentration occurring today threaten to exclude hundreds of millions of people from realizing the benefits of their talents and hard work.’ It does look like we’re well-past the tipping point of ‘some economic inequality’ and we’re now into dangerous extremes. Oxfam note that: ‘over the past few decades, the rich have successfully wielded political influence to skew policies in their favour on issues ranging from financial deregulation, tax havens, anti-competitive business practices to lower tax rates on high incomes and cuts in public services for the majority. Since the late 1970s, tax rates for the richest have fallen in 29 out of 30 countries for which data are available.’ (Guardian article) And I weep for all the rights workers in the seventies and eighties who laboured to get equalities principles understood and acts of law passed. Now we have governments that routinely disdain equalities in pursuit of the re-feudalisation of society. Is there much awareness, let alone discomfort, about this state of affairs? Is it true, as I suggested here, that 'most people don’t really notice, and some even believe them to be doing their best'? Maybe more awareness than I’d have suspected: the Guardian article refers to Oxfam’s survey research: ‘In the UK, some 67% agreed that "the rich have too much influence over where this country is headed" - 37% saying that they agreed "strongly" with the statement - against just 10% who disagreed, 2% of them strongly.’ George Monbiot, meanwhile, is asking whether the reason we’re all so indifferent about the abuses of power around us is because we’re satiated with comfort: too much freedom to be bothered about freedom. Perhaps that’s part of it – certainly I don’t see how our cultural emphasis on consumption and celebrity can be regarded as healthy – but I wouldn’t want to lose sight of the issue of equalities. Oxfam are right to stress its centrality to social justice. There are people in positions of responsibility who spout the rhetoric of social justice who could appreciate that; but it's not in their interests, or those of their friends.

Kevin Harris

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