Views & Opinion Who is the real winner? Comment by ALICIA BLANCO-BAYO, Early Years teacher, Kirkham Grammar School


How do young children see the world? How do they understand relationships? How do we support them so that they have the tools to solve complex situations? How do we, in today’s society, teach young children that winning a race or receiving an award for being first at something does not make you a better person?


As much as I am aware of the difficulties we may face as grown-ups and that we live in a competitive world, it does make me sad to see that it is common today to encounter children being encouraged to compete against each other as if being first was almost crucial. We reward success and praise children who exceed in one thing or another, often without realising we feel obliged to enter an absurd competitive cycle from a young age.


Having explored the benefits of supporting children as they learn to find their place within a social circle, I have developed a series of strategies that I hope give children some of the tools they need to think for themselves. In the current climate, where children’s learning seems to be measured in percentages and figures that mean very little, perhaps we need to rethink how we help children become inquisitive thinkers. Julie Fisher puts it like this: “too many questions are concerned with what children know, rather than what children think.”


The snail and the hare I had considered some activities to get children moving whilst they try to


complete an obstacle course, and, as I began to encourage them to do so, I observed their emotional responses. Some children watched how others were going over, through and under the obstacles so much that I decided to follow them throughout the exercise. It was interesting to see how they had become self-centred, and how their goal was not simply completing the course but doing it before anybody else. At this stage, those particular children were asked to pretend they were snails which meant they had to complete the obstacle course crawling very slowly. Each “snail” moved at a different pace, because the goal in each of the children’s mind was still to get to the finish line before their friends. At this point, the instructions were explained differently and children were reminded that snails are in fact very slow so the best way to complete the obstacle course was to move like a real snail. This meant they would be “real snails” and that’s what the game was about, being a snail.


What I learnt from this experience is that children automatically became hares because they already had the preconception of needing to be fast to win. Learning to be snails helped them understand how succeeding is about getting to the end and that having a place in a grading scale is not what makes you good at something.


We can celebrate individual achievements and see each other as a winner of a personal race, the race that helps us find a sense of belonging. Children can only learn that though, if we teach them to think for themselves and about each other.


Education for life Comment by FELICIA JACKSON, chair of the Learn2Think Foundation


“Progress is impossible without change; those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything” GB Shaw


The education sector bears one of society’s greatest burdens, and greatest privileges. As the World Economic Forum points out, what we teach our children, and how we teach them, will impact almost every aspect of society, from the quality of healthcare to industrial output; from technological advances to financial services.


While children are heavily influenced by their home environments, and by their peers, what they see, learn and experience at school will frame their ability to continually grow, learn and engage with a rapidly evolving social, technological and working environment. It could be said that the most important thing children can learn is how to learn and how to engage with others.


To achieve that is easier said than done however. Part of the problem is that learning to think is not part of the criteria for day to day education. In today’s schools, we have significant skills-based expectations but little to no thinking based expectations. When it comes to values, rights and the understanding of others there are existing programmes that support schools: Rights Respecting Schools, Values-based Education, P4C and more but all of these are voluntary and rely on heads and staff to embed and deploy. One of the challenges facing educators is the need for assessment and the


June 2017


achievement of targets, with the goal of making students fit for work, and productive members of society. The question that remains unanswered is what exactly that means. As Nigel Cohen of Values Based Education says, “A critical tool in the skill set [of our students] is an effective engagement with universal, positive human values. It nurtures their capacity to develop effective relationships so that problems can be resolved through mutual action, in place of the fear-based division we see growing in so many parts of the world today."


Bigotry is one of the most difficult things to address within society. It can stem from fear and misinformation and can be used as a political weapon. A bigot is a person who is ‘obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices’ and in a complex world we can no longer afford to ignore facts over opinions. Classrooms have a critical role to play in ensuring that children’s minds develop to be open to ideas, criticism, debate and thought.


This year’s Tolerance Day on 16th November 2017 will build on last year’s focus on religious tolerance and diversity, with materials on misinformation and bias, helping children to assess what, why and where their information comes from, and how to think for themselves.


The first 50 schools to sign-up by sending their name, school and address and the code TD17 ET to info@learn2think.org.uk will receive a free book and poster pack supporting the downloadable materials.


www.education-today.co.uk 13


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