 |
The UK's Leading Education 'Do-Tank' |
Search |
|
The National Education Trust is an independent charitable foundation dedicated to the promotion and sharing of excellent practice and innovation in education. |
| What matters to children?
Diane Hofkins finds out from the experts Click here for a print version of this article. What matters to children? This question is not asked often enough. There is much discussion about what matters to parents, to Ministers, to the Daily Mail, even to teachers. Children, meanwhile, are there to be taught, fixed, shaped, helped, controlled and prepared for adulthood. That's why the What Matters to Children team has called their new book Learning: what matters to children (The first book was First Hand Experience: what matters to children). They want to keep us firmly focused on first principles. The authors, Mary Jane Drummond, Diane Rich and Cathy Myer, write: "We believe that in thinking about the most appropriate curriculum and pedagogy for children from birth to 11, the best place for educators to start is with the children themselves, the people who do the learning." But of course children are not the only ones doing the learning. Their latest book also says a great deal about how adults learn from children and from other adults. Each chapter in its alphabet of ideas contains vignettes about children, as well as their writing and drawings. A relevant children's book is recommended, as is a book by an educational thinker. Chapter F for feelings concludes, "The process of learning is always emotional as well as intellectual; no-one can do worthwhile learning with a cold heart." If you have anything to do with primary or early childhood education, these books will help you think about your work and the people you work with. They are lively, accessible, fun to use and well-designed. It is impossible for me to do them justice in a column. Writing about early childhood education as a journalist only becomes easy when someone in authority is trying to count it and measure it. The nursery voucher scheme, that last stand of the last Tory government, was about numbers: numbers of places, numbers of settings, numbers of pounds, and the number 4. How many four-year-olds could you cram into Reception classes whether or not they were ready for real school? Perhaps Labour's last stand will be the Children's Plan. It is far more complex, of course, and is underpinned by a genuine determination to narrow the gap between rich and poor, to help those in care and to motivate children to learn. But just when you have been lulled into a feeling of optimism, you find yourself mired in a bog of numbers. Here are some of them:
Point three above, and other tick-box measurement, is one of the problems to which What Matters to Children is the answer. In the best infant teacher tradition, Mary Jane and her colleagues tell much of what they want to say in stories. Ironically, this makes it easy to understand what they mean, but very hard to write about. They are stories that show the striking individuality of each child, that demonstrate their intense curiosity about the world and determination to learn about it, their grasp of big ideas. But here's a list from chapter T, "Learners Take Time": How is it possible to provide and organise for time?
Diane Hofkins is a NET leading thinker and former primary editor of The TES |
| Phone (44) (0)207 702 0707 |
Follow us on  |
Support NET
|
Join our mailing list |
Buy NET products online |
| Copyright © National Education Trust 2012 The National Education Trust asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this web site. Unless otherwise specified, all material on this website may be used for non-commercial purposes, on condition that the source is acknowledged. The National Education Trust is not responsible for the content of external websites. |
|||