YOU need eyes in the back of your head at the best of times when dealing with young children. So news that a school is allowing four-year-olds to play with kitchen knives and hammers gives me a mild dose of the fear.
Instead of using generic plastic toys, Rockland St Mary Primary School, in Norwich, wants to enhance their pupils’ “real world experiences” by letting them play with everyday objects.
This is a laudable approach, I’m sure. But do the everyday objects, lethal in the hands of many less than dextrous adults, have to be dangerous things? Surely soft furnishing could be equally valuable as pedagogical aids?
Admittedly, I’m on the high end of the risk-averse spectrum. When our son was a youngster, we were almost on first-name terms with the staff at A&E. Even the most innocuous playtime activity could become fraught with danger in his company. Even sticking stickers into a sticker book ended in stitches. A sticky moment indeed.
However, the brave teachers at Rockland St Mary PS said during the past four weeks there has been “only one incident with a child” and their parents have been “very supportive”. Presumably, this “incident” was a valuable “real” learning experience for the child in question, who I hope recovers soon.
Teacher Zoe Marsden said the trial, which sees the school’s youngest children using teapots, knives, saws and bricks, has so far been a success as it teaches the children about the dangers of dropping objects. Marsden explained: “It is anti-pretend things.
“We want them to use their own initiative and manage the risks that will come with them. They will learn to be resourceful, knowing if they drop the teapot, it will smash.”
It is not clear if the teapot contains scalding tea in order to enhance the reality factor.
Marsden added that the children “also know that there are no consequences, that if it smashes on the floor we can sort it – but to know there is now danger and to be careful”. She continued: “We respect the children to be trusted with these objects, and the children respect us back more.”
Can I suggest that the fact they might also be terrified could add another dimension?
Marsden continued: “We have had only one incident with a child. A little boy was trying to open a jar and he was pulling and pulling and ended up hurting his elbow because he couldn’t open the jar. But again, that is another lesson for him.”
That’ll teach him!
Marsden said: “They are making links that pretend things don’t give them. If you give a child a plastic house or plastic kitchen, you are directing the play for them. We want the environment to be the third teacher.”
The teacher said since the initiative started, the children have been more focused. Certainly, I find there’s nothing better to concentrate the mind than the fear of injury.
She added: “They enjoy it more because they feel like they are doing something that is in the real world. They have been very, very fascinated by it all … they know how to manage a risk.”
There you have it: risk management for four-year-olds. It’s not clear what’s in store for the children as they get older. Playing with fire, perhaps?
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