Category: Uncategorized

Physical Activity Report

The ever-thoughtful Julian Grenier brings to our attention – well, to mine anyway – the new physical activity guidelines in his blog and in the factsheet 2 It deserves some consideration, although I feel uneasy as I read it. . Part of me has to recognise where my opposition comes from: the tone, which is less factsheet than Diktat, and (deeper in my history) from the dire footie sessions in Junior and Secondary schooling where I was taught nothing and stood around, bored and cold and sidelined (and I now shamefacedly wonder about all those other classes where I lapped up attention at the cost of bored and sidelined classmates). However, three hours a day seems an awful lot to get in – until we turn from the terse and instructional language of the factsheet to the longer report itself, Start Active, Stay Active and in particular Ch 3 on Early Years.
Full marks to the repeated admissions of the paucity of research evidence on EY activity. But I find the argument interesting, and  I worry about this reported connection:

Importantly, patterns of sedentary behaviour, particularly TV viewing, are relatively stable over time.

The brief, sketchy but important section p24 tells us soething about what the report sees as important about play, abd while I could argue about this rather instrumental view of such a core way of interacting, it is nonetheless worth quoting in extenso:

Active play opportunities should encourage young
children to:
•use their large muscle groups
• practise a wide range of different movements
• experience a variety of play spaces and
equipment
• set up their own play areas
• make up their own active play
• have fun and feel good about themselves and what they can do.

But does it have to seem as if we are required to do it? Oppositional me feels like catching the bus instead of cycling to work in the morning….

Ramachandran digested – and a useful set of links

Since I am very much enjoying Phantoms in the Brain, I thought the video from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) would be worth sharing.  This  is the link:  Ramachandran at TED and well worth the 20 or so minutes, despite the odd editing glitches.

Mind you, TED is a great resource anyway: this on play, for example (watch for the red rubber ball stuff!) or Csikszentmihalyi on flow or the ever-excellent (and funny) Ken Robinson on creativity and education.   Questions arise: what “feeds the spirit”? How do we truly listen? What is resilience?

Big questions in the reform of education.

Nostalgia, Comfort and Risk in Young Children’s Literature

It would be over-ambitious to try and encapsulate a history of landscape or picturesque landscape painting into this short paper – even the origins of the term landscape have been queried – but following Cosgrove, it is “way of seeing the world,” with “an aspect of meaning that lies beyond science, the understanding of which cannot be reduced to formal processes.” In terms of landscape painting, this ca be seen as an attempt to grasp a “deeper meaning” or to imbue a scene with meaning – so that in Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews we are presented with land as managed and ownable. Landscape painting emerges most powerfully in traditional Western Art, Cosgrove asserts, precisely at the point where the political change and tensions of the C18th require it. Prince is bolder: “One appeal of picturesque art was precisely its escape from the stresses and disturbances caused by Agrarian changes” and thus conversation-pieces like Mr and Mrs Andrews or even the considered landscape of Constable’s Golding Constable’s Kitchen Garden (NB this link  is to a pencil sketch in the V&A) present visual evidence of human intervention into a natural world.

That there is a further element of the fantastic in the three images I want to discuss does not remove them from this painterly tradition – in fact, there is an interplay between this tradition and the intentions of the Ahlbergs and author and illustrator that I suggest is deliberate. There are, for example, visual borrowings – meandering rivers, church spires seen at a distance, that act as signifiers of location but also as a subtle joke. This is a fantasy land, but this is recognisable England. The same sort of visual reference is made in the illustrations Tolkein made, where the Shire, for all its round doors and houses in hillsides, quotes from a view of rural Englishness that has been recognisable since Gainsborough. To misquote Peter Porter, “this is not Athens, but it may be the woods of Warwickhire.” It is interesting to note, of course , as a sideline, that this is the same device by which Shakespeare’s own rural England becomes fantasy world, and that it is the very same region of Arden that encompasses Tolkein’s childhood. This nostalgia for the rural has an ancient lineage itself: the first-century Roman poet Horace (whose poetry constitutes part of the Classical tradition in English education) discusses his desire to return to his farm and its clear spring water , and the poem continues to have influences in the work of writers such as Wordsworth, Hopkins and Joyce

Here we come close to something like my main argument: in using English landscape, Janet Ahlberg is not only “collecting” – which was the modus operandi behind so much of the detail in her work – landscapes, and English ones were the most accessible but consciously drawing on the conventions –the “easy tricks” as Gombrich calls them of English landscape painting which are themselves echoed in books Janet relished as a child such as Rupert Bear . In the Jolly Postman we have wooden signposts, hills with small fields, the church spire on the horizon; the same landscape appears in the two other books I am considering. I should perhaps mention that I have excluded from my discussion the urban landscapes of any of Cops and Robbers and Burglar Bill, and that in any case this use of landscape is not unique to Janet Ahlberg – we might not only cite Tolkein, but poignantly closer in genre, Allan Ahlberg’s later collaborator, Andre Amstutz.

Siting the Ahlbergs within this tradition is one thing; in seeking to explore the three themes promised by my title, we need to move from this basic stance to look at the issue of why children’s book authors and illustrators set children’s books in the past, exploring why they do so and when that past might be located. I feel that the answer lies in the rise of landscape painting itself. If Prince is right that there is an escapist element to landscape painting, it might be possible to see an element of escapism in the nostalgic representations in the three works under consideration.

In a brief overview of ecocritcism Gifford’s Recent Critiques of Ecocriticism two contrasting models of criticism are put forward, in a context which the author freely admits is rather difficult to define: what has been called the “praise-song school,” in which the individual writers from Thoreau to Mabey are celebrated for their insights can be contrasted with a ‘second wave’ which, to give the briefest of overviews is more aware of its own cultural and political engagement. It is with this interpretative model in mind that we look at Nostalgia and Comfort.

One theory might be that the deliberate nostalgia of the characters in the three books draws on a continuing tradition of setting traditional tales in the past: in Each Peach Pear Plum, for example, the costumes seem to draw on C18th domestic clothing (Mother Hubbard in the cellar, Jack and Jill in the ditch) , and Edwardian hunting clothes of the three bears, with a nod to the mediaeval attire of Robin Hood. The appeal of the C18th and Edwardian periods for these characters/setting could be precisely because they represent possible Golden Ages, the “Good Old Days” to which the dinosaur refers in Jeremiah in the Dark Woods, or at least the eve of radical changes to society, the changes of from rural to urban life experiences in C19th, the societal changes brought about by the war(s) of the C20th. . The appeal of this desire for a return to a golden age in childhood might be, as Coe suggests, that “…it is not so much that the child itself, now an adult, has forever outgrown the splendors [sic] of the past, but rather than civilization and “progress” have annihilated, perhaps totally and irretrievably, an ancient way of life and replaced it with something crude, rootless and modern.” Certainly the use of a dinosaur to express the desire for “the good old days, them good old days as is gone forever” underlines the annihilation of the past.

Another way of seeing these is in terms of the comfort, the reassurance historical continuity can provide. This, again, is not isolated to the Ahlbergs, or to younger children’s literature, and is attested in other children’s writers, for example Rudyard Kipling and Lucy Boston. The latter is very clear:
“Readers of The Children of Green Knowe might suppose Green Knowe was my family home. This is not so. It came to me by accident… My passionate desire that it should have a future made me provide it in the books with such a firm lineage.”

Her description of finding an historical artefact – a beaver’s tooth – is very similar to that of Kipling’s workmen finding Roman remains when digging a new well at Bateman’s, where he claims the genius loci of the valley inspired his seeing key episodes of British history played out on the local scale: Kipling’s comments on his search for “roots” in writing Puck of Pook’s Hill:
I…began to ‘hatch’ in which state I was ‘a brother to dragons and a companion to owls’…The Old Things of our valley glided into every aspect of our outdoor works. Earth, Air, Water and People had been – I saw it at last – in full conspiracy to give me ten times as much as I could compass.

Both authors point to a need to connect with a past for sureness – and it is perhaps significant, to return to an earlier point, that they both have these experiences overshadowed within a few years by war.
“To all children, and particularly to small children, a love of the past is natural. It is the soil at their roots. They have but recently emerged from the stuff of it. It gives them comfort, security and a pattern”

Her use of land imagery is to be noted; Kipling and Boston share a sense of what Boston calls “racial memory” and represent it in their books. It is possible to see the nostalgic representations in the Ahlbergs in a similar vein – but this is a conjecture; so far the evidence is lacking.

Note that the text prepared for the conference paper was referenced.  Sources and further reading would include

Ahlberg, A. (1996). Janet’s Last Book, Printed for private circulation by the author.

Coe, R. (1984). When the Grass was Taller: Autobiography and the Experience of Childhood. New Haven, Yale University Press.

Cosgrove, D. (1982). Social formation and symbolic landscape. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.

Gifford, T (2008).  Recent Critiques of Ecocritcism, New Formations Spring 2006: 64: 15-24

Kipling, R (Library Ed., 1951) Something of Myself. London, MacMillan.

Mabey, R (2006). Nature Cure. London: Pimlico Books.

Prince, H. (1988). Art and Agrarian Change 1710-1815 In Denis Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels. The iconography of landscape. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 98-118.

Rosendale, S. ed (2002). The Greening of Literary Scholarship: literature, theory and the environment. Iowa, University of Iowa Press.

Language and Nature

I wonder how much we overuse or at least strain metaphors (to use a metaphor) when we use language to describe nature or use nature as a metphor. Lucy Boston, a great user of language in chidlren’s literature suggests that

“To all children, and particularly to small children, a love of the past is natural. It is the soil at their roots. They have but recently emerged from the stuff of it. It gives them comfort, security and a pattern”

Interesting to read, in Richard Mabey’s wonderful book Weeds, some forays into what works and what doesn’t when describing phenomena in nature – in this case, cross-continental colonisation:

“[Tim Low in Feral Future] talks as if he blames the invading plants themselves. The invaders ‘steal’ into our forests, ‘foul; our rivers. Weeds ‘fester’. St John’s Wort, source of an effective anti-depressant, is described as ‘malevolent’, mimosa as the ‘repugnant claimer of 30,000 acres of wetlands’…Low’s emotive vocabulary doesn’t help his case.”

How we over-use natural phenomena as metaphors is a fascinating topic. As one example, we have “floods” of immigrants in New Mexico, and in Europe, and Australia (although it’s interesting to note how a quick Google search is made more complex here by the real floods in Australia!). It is also noteworthy how many of the more inflammatory groups use flood – even tsunami – imagery; I won’t add to their count of site hits by linking them, but will link to Jane Lane’s materails on combatting racism. In another example, astronomy (or possibly astrology) has been used as a metaphor for interagency working with young children and families: I am not sure of the success of this image, although the photos in the powerpoint are good. And of course simile and metaphors of growth are as ancient as any in Western literature.

Perhaps they are inescapable. Richard Mabey again, this time from Nature Cure:

We constantly refer back to the natural world to try and discover who we are. Nature is the most potent source of metaphors to describe and explain our behaviour and feelings. It is the root and branch  of our language. We sing like birds, blossom like flowers,stand like oaks. Or then again we eat like gluttons, breed like rabbits and generally behave like animals… It is as if in using the facility of language, the thing we believe most separates us from nature, we are constantly pulled back to its, and our, origins. In that sense all natural metaphors are miniature creation myths, allusions to how things came to be, and a confirmation of the unity of life.”

It would be churlish to distinguish between metaphor and simile here, when the real question seems to me to be Does this all simply depend on how well the metaphor works or not? Or how much one agrees with the speaker/writer?

Westminster Education Forum

The Westminster Education Forum was interesting in that we got to hear some strong, individual voices, even if the sessions were  not illuminating about what was actually going to happen to the hard work of Robin Alexander and Claire Tickell. Here, for reference, is a link to the Cambridge Primary Review and here’s one to the review of the EYFS,  although I have made note of this before in this post.

What Robin Alexander had to say at the Westminster Forum is, in some ways, replicated by his Minimalisms Model in the release from CPR currently on their home page and also seen in this response to the DfE consultation process.  He remained reticent about what reception this message got from officials or ministers in the DfE, and it looked to me as if DfE representatives had been told not to do much, well, representing to us last week, although they may, of course, have had a different brief, and were representing back to ministers the feeling of the forum. They would have had their work cut out, I think, with so many different partis pris at pains to say their bit. I shall pass over my irritation at the cutesy tones of those advocating direct instruction for under sixes on the grounds that “children just love being praised for doing things the teachers ask them to” and the general frustration at the same speech-as-question repeated at every opportunity about why we have to fund Early Years when education is only compulsory over five. Too cheap (even for me) to carp at the people I disagree with.

With conflicting voices at the forum it was also fascinating to read Julian Grenier’s comments on his blog about how the media are reporting Tickell and I note (although without much hope that it will have effect) his sonorous sentence “This is not the time to start all over again.” I agree, it isn’t: but we remain, or rather as Carol Aubrey  wrote nearly ten years ago, the children remain

“the nexus  of power relations, policy concerns and value investments of home and school. They are caught struggling to meet competing social, cultural and academic goals embedded in distinct pedagogic practices at school and home. In this context, notions of complexity and diversity may not convey positive meanings.”

The next WEF session may be more enlightening in terms of how the Government is intending to lay the paths.  Attending  was fascinating but it tells me we are not out of the woods yet.

Tickell Review

So it’s out. Claire Tickell’s pieces to camera notwithstanding, there is much to be thought through, munched over, &c., &c. in the review, which is linked here:

I’ve only just begun to take it in, and early reactions have to be tempered by thoughts of how well the Government will take it, whether it will be tinged with the other debates – such as the phonics stuff, for starters, and the debate about making it voluntary (which she addresses on p 11) – and what effect it might have on the NC review (the call for evidence, about to close,  is linked here) or vice versa. But here from a first reading of the first section are a few snippets to ponder:

Repeatedly people reinforced the importance of an experienced, well-trained and supported workforce, and the international evidence supports this. Indeed, there is strong evidence that under-qualified and under-supported staff have a detrimental impact on outcomes for children. I have therefore made recommendations on how the status of working in early years might be enhanced and developed.
 There was also a strong and repeated emphasis on the importance of an appropriate, proportionate regulatory framework delivered by an inspectorate with a deep understanding of early years.
 Finally, and very importantly, the current economic context needs to be acknowledged as a significant factor informing the approach taken to the review.

Already there is lots to say here. I like the idea (how could I not?) of an experienced and well trained workforce, but looming over it like a thundercloud is her final point here: how will this be paid for? Later in the report she notes that “Much of the resource initially provided to support the implementation and development of the EYFS is being phased out.” In the same way, an “appropriate framework” inspected (or delivered, I’m not sure what the import of her wording is here) by people “with a deep understanding of early years” is something I and others have wanted for a long, long time – but I am in real doubt that the current regulators and inspectors are necessarily ready to take this on without considerably more training.

Pressing on to the parts that everyone was (perhaps understandably but unfairly) waiting for, the issues of school readiness and what the new framework might say about formal aspects of learning such as reading. Dame Claire comes out with guns blazing:

I know that some people interpret the term ‘school readiness’ as implying that
children could be pressured to learn to read and write at inappropriately young ages.

Her emphasis on personal and social development puts her review back (if it ever left it) within the “nursery inheritance.” While I still haven’t quite digested where she’s gong (to mix my metaphors) with talking about school unreadiness, I can, I think, see sense in her assertion (p21) that personal, social and emotional development, communication and language and physical development are identified as prime areas of learning in the EYFS.” It will depend, of course, on how this interpreted in the final documents, and how this is spun by politicians.

On then to Annex 4, the proposed slimming down of the Foundation Stage, and Annex 5, the proposed Early Learning Goals.

“Mercifully little change” seemed my first response, but I am now unsure. We have had slimmings-down before, and somehow the debate moves from giving children time and space to the day being taken up by those things the Government want measuring. No party can be seen to be in favour of declining standards, and it always seems to me to be beyond the wit of spin doctors to devise a way of selling to their politicians the notion of early learning not being about reading and writing. We will have to see whether the “school readiness” debate becomes, again, dominated by an adult-led (a panic-driven, headteacher-led?) scramble for formal skills, desirable for Governmental measuring, or whether the reports recommendation (p58) that “playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically are highlighted in the EYFS as three characteristics of effective teaching and learning” is actually taken seriously.

Would You Like to Tidy Up Now?

The latest RSA Animation – this time from the tricksy and funny Steven Pinker –  is interesting to ponder in the light of the research paper “Would you like to tidy up now?” by Iram Siraj-Blatchford and Laura Manni (Early Years Vol. 28, No. 1, March 2008, 5–22), whose title I have used for this blog post.  Does a teacher who asks that kind of polite request think that it is actually grounded in that teacher’s assumption of a mutual knowledge about request and knowledge of a relationship? Is it, as Pinker says, something to do with “not being able to take it back?” That politeness allows a step back before confrontation?

Or is it that these adult norms of politeness are translated without thought into interactions with children?

Michael Morpurgo on why I come to work

There must be more than just this briefest post at some point, but here  is the current link (how long will an I-player link work?)  to Michael Morpurgo’s inspirational Dimbleby lecture and here is the link to Morpurgo’s own website and text.

I notice that the harder-lined chatterers are already out with comments like “He is a well intentioned, but clueless person. He has a big old fashioned left wing heart, good at bleating, but short on analysis.”  I disagree: we are not dealing here with “wrong but romantic versus right but replusive”  but with a whole set of practices and assumptions that ultimately defeat the work educators try and do.  I write this  because the points he brought in – the power of books to transform understanding, school starting age, the complexities of discussing oppression, life-chances and school experiences – all made rather a clever argument for the right of children to be able to access  a well-thought-out and effective educational experience.

And if there was the occasional bleat, I’m afraid I prefer it to to a snarl.