Holdfast, or don't hold at all!

Blog of Kip McGrath Education Centres - Holdfast Bay

iMagination

July 16
by Annie 16. July 2013 20:03

 

If you have a few grey hairs (yes, coloured ones do count!), think back to your childhood. What was your most valued possession: first bike, doll, football?

Mine was my imagination. I was an only child with protective parents, so I spent a fair amount of my childhood playing by myself. Even when we went caravanning (yep, the great British holiday, trapped in a tin can with the rain drilling into the roof), I was on my own most of the time, only with far fewer toys and less room! In the absence of pocket-sized boxes of electronic entertainment, my brain actually had to do some work to keep me amused!

I was a ballerina on tour, the first female Prime Minister (Maggie hadn’t been invented yet), the first female to climb all of the highest mountains, a teacher to my beach stone students, a singer in the best band in the world. I was all of these things and many, many more, because my imagination was able to place me in a movie set of my own design at any time and in any place.

My question is how many kids can do that these days? Gosh, I’m not even sure if I can do it anymore; I am ‘welded’ to my Samsung Note II when on the move, sleep with my iPad and my fingers twitch involuntarily when a remote control is at hand. How did this happen? How did we all become bit players in a world created by our own devices?

This past weekend I spent an enjoyable day at Central Market, a local café and then a film with a dear friend who is anti-technology and refuses to have a mobile phone. After spending hours in conversation with her, not a digital screen in sight, and really enjoying it, I began to empathise with her position.

On the tram on the way home I sat next to an extended family comprising no less than 5 iPads, 5 matching smartphones, several Gameboys and similar, and I think there were a few humans as well for good measure. The average number of devices in use per person was more than the number of hands. Figure that one out!

Not a word was spoken, unless you count the completely anti-social beeps, bangs and shouts from the devices, all turned up to full volume without earphones. At least three generations of the same family and no non-electronic communication at all from the CBD to the beach. At least, until all electronic devices were confiscated in preparation for departure from the tram. Then there was communication, if you count wailing and crying!

I know that this is an extreme and, I hope, rare, example, but I fear that it is more common than we would all like to admit, and the days of children being entertained by simple things like books and lego are as lost to us as hats and suits were to the horrified parents of children growing up in the sixties.

At our centre we combine computer work with paper-based work, and it can be difficult, persuading children to wrap their hands around a pencil and make primitive marks on paper. When asked to write, particularly the longer passages needed for certain writing, hand cramps quickly become an issue. Even here, we have given ourselves over to technology, and depending on your perspective, this is either to our advantage as it saves time and effort, or to our disadvantage as that effort gave us skills that are now being lost.

My sister-in-law has recently moved her family to a new house, in need of top to toe renovation, including the garden, which is a wild land of grass, old foundations and a crumbling driveway. But the amazing thing is that her kids are happier than I have seen them in ages. Somehow this ‘unfinished’ place has inspired their imagination and they now choose ‘playing’ (and by this I mean actual, physical playing, where there is a danger of dirt and getting hurt) over ‘gaming’ (to include all digital entertainment) by choice. Maybe there is still hope.

I am not suggesting that kids are deprived of computers; they are a fact of life and necessary for their future success. But I am suggesting that their use of computers is balanced with ‘proper’ play, that involves physical movement, social skills with others and, yes, large doses of imagination that will drive the next generation of writers, inventors, engineers and philosophers. Let’s try and keep those pesky little electronic devices in their place, as servants, not masters.

 

 

 

Tags:

Why?

July 07
by Annie 7. July 2013 22:13

 

At what age do we stop asking why? Children have a natural curiosity and a huge, undiscovered world on their doorstep that they need to know more about. ‘Why are leaves green?’ ‘Why are clouds fluffy?’ ‘Where does all the rain come from?’ ‘Why does Uncle Fred have long nose hairs?’ They will keep asking ‘why?’ until they have the answers, even if it means asking ‘why?’ five or more times.

Their inquisitive nature has an important function. Every question puts their little feet a step closer to understanding their place in the universe.

Somewhere along the way however the questions lessen. It happens to all of us. There are a number of obvious reasons for this. We learn enough to satisfy initial curiosity and start discovering for ourselves. We make friends and start ‘pooling’ information. We attend school and discover an unending supply of data that needs to be processed that leaves little time for questions.

But there is another important factor that stops our natural questioning ability in its tracks: adults. Let’s be honest, in the middle of a busy modern life crammed full of things like work, the mortgage, sports, social engagements, love and travel, little kids asking ‘why?’ all the time can get, well, a little bit annoying. True?

And that is the reality faced by these little enquiring minds. They want to know everything, they want to know it now, and they have no social sensitivities to stop them, until the ‘big people’ start making it clear that asking too many questions is bad, or at least, inconvenient. Apparently there is an unspoken limit. So after a few attempts they reduce the number of questions they ask. This becomes the new, internal, social norm. And this continues.

By the time we have adapted to the rhythm of school, our natural instinct to question has been dampened down and we are shifting in to ‘receiving’ mode, ready to spend the next twelve plus years recording, filing, ordering and retransmitting, data.

 When we come across an adult who questions intensively, we are amazed; the James Dysons, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world are ‘one in a million’, genetically unique. But they aren’t really, they are simply curious, and their curiosity is more powerful than any social norms that protect our sensitivities by limiting the number of times we can ask ‘why?’ 

Education runs in cycles. When I was young we read, listened, memorised and repeated. Questioning was not a big part of the curriculum. Later on this was largely replaced by ‘inquiry’ learning, which emphasised the need for children to discover rather than receive information. The two camps have been fighting for years and perhaps always will.

The best for children is perhaps a mixture of the two. Times tables are not an ‘inquiry’ they are a fact and need to be memorised. Later maths, in particular algebra, is more about discovery, and children need to have the freedom to explore concepts, and, ask questions.

Mark and I regularly have friends for dinner, and we enjoy bringing together mixed groups to see what will happen. Inevitably the best evenings leave behind a few empty bottles, and this is significant. The contents of the bottles break down the social conventions and the ‘why’s?’ flow freely across the table. We discover so much more about people when we all lose this ridiculous inhibition that prevents us from asking questions.

Now, I am not encouraging drinking as a social improvement exercise, but I am suggesting that a few more ‘why’s?’ in the world may not be a bad thing. All of which leads me to suggest that the next time a young mind looks at you with wide, anticipating eyes and says ‘why?’, you pause, draw breath, count to a patient ‘10’ if you need to, and answer them as honestly as you can. Encourage the curiosity of the next generation, and, while you’re at it, ask a few more questions yourself. You never know what new paths it may lead you down. 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

General

About the author

Something about the author

Month List

Page List