We’ve all probably read articles saying kids are too sheltered and protected these days, so I think it’s encouraging that some educators in Britain are trying to do something about it.
Out went the plastic playhouses and in came the dicey stuff: stacks of two-by-fours, crates and loose bricks. The schoolyard got a mud pit, a tire swing, log stumps and workbenches with hammers and saws.
“We thought, how can we bring that element of risk into your everyday environment?” said Leah Morris, who manages the early years program at the school in Shoeburyness in southeast Britain. “We were looking at, O.K., so we’ve got a sand pit, what can we add to the sand pit to make it more risky?”
Now, Ms. Morris says proudly, “we have fires, we use knives, saws, different tools,” all used under adult supervision. Indoors, scissors abound, and so do sharp-edged tape dispensers (“they normally only cut themselves once,” she says).
Limited risks are increasingly cast by experts as an experience essential to childhood development, useful in building resilience and grit.
—In Britain’s Playgrounds, ‘Bringing in Risk’ to Build Resilience
Good for them! I hope it goes well and the idea spreads for the sake of the kids.
This seems so true now
Yes, the world is changing fast, so kids need to be resilient.
not only resilience – but knowledge – what if I put this with that? Or why don’t we build a bridge over the s/pit – measuring, gauging the depth of the angles, will we need a column to hold it up better…
Now I think we need a shelter – how will we construct it? with what? how big? should it be tent like therefore angles needed…and so on.
this is in some ways how NZ education is heading where it’s not about knowing the test answers but actually solving problems and working with what you’ve got. And the teachers aren’t there to say “not that way, you must do it this way”
many teachers are not in favour…because apparently you must do it my way.
I came across a lot of it at University – I was thinking of two instances just today when I got marked down for going against 2 separate lecturers. One because I made a very critical book review (found out later marker loved that book…and “how dare I?”) the other when he wrote in very red pen “that’s if you really believe that to be true” (or words to that effect)… in regards to this 2nd mark-down – I was actually quoting another scholar, about something I really couldn’t have 2-hoots about whether I believed or not!!!
What I love about “my now life” is that I resolve anything that won’t work for me – or if it’s not right even after resolution – I either bin it and start again OR I just put another layer on…
Good for NZ! I agree, kids need to learn to be competent and know how to think, solve problems. I’m sorry your lecturers at the University were so bad. When I was in college they didn’t care what position you took as long as you could back it up with facts and good arguments. They really were trying to get students to think critically.
I understand that somewhere in an earlier decades they changed the method of teaching and learning…to become this idea that “only the teacher was right, and that if wanted to go off outside of the fields prescribed then you would never pass any exam…until now, you are taught what is needed to pass – not to think out and resolve things differently…
this recently showed up some the flaws (NZ) https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/highschool-students-considered-unprepared-after-holes-found-in-ncea-curriculum
oh yes – “back up arguments etc” but don’t expect the marker to agree with your findings!!!
That’s too bad! 🙁
I don’t see any room for optimism here though very rarely some parent is willing to experiment. The competitive spirit is too strong here and people simply do not have time to allow children to experiment and play like earlier generations did. Electronics and digital devices have changed the entire growing up process to one of sedentary occupations. Hardly any manual activity other than to push buttons.
That certainly is different from when Kaitlin was a child, see today’s post.
kudos to Leah Morris!
I enjoyed the comments of everyone too.
learning to “come in out of the rain” is very important these days!
it’s not a step backwards but a step in seeing.
and like Cathy says… “actually solving problems and working with what you’ve got. ”
kind of refreshing. and good to know there are some enlightened teachers!
Fingers crossed more school systems understand the need, but at the moment it doesn’t look as if it will happen soon.
For the most part we didn’t learn to think or take risks in school. But we were what’s now known as free-range kids so we built treehouses and played with matches and wandered outside our neighborhood exploring. We learned by experience what happens in various conditions–like the time they blacktopped the road between us and home and we had to decide whether to walk our bikes across or ride them across.
It’s not just incorporating risk taking in schools that’s needed for today’s kids. They need to be encouraged to get away from the screens — TV, game console, laptop, smartphone, tablet — and physically go out into the real world. Karen and I have noticed for years, here as well as in our travels, that it’s rare to see kids outside doing anything anymore.