AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. It is a common concern nowadays that, with our fast moving society and social media, children are getting involved in the world of adults from a much younger age.
I worry about it. I have children of my own, all boys. I feel that if I had girls I would worry about it even more. But of course I do have girls. Around fifteen of them in my class every year and I worry about the world we are sending them into, equipped with all of the teaching and, dare I say it, boring lectures that primary school has had to throw at them in the guise of PSHE and ICT and with the hope of giving them some tools to stay safe in life and online but with little in the way of skills like critical thinking, analytical skills, imagining different scenarios and actually making their own decisions. “Don’t trust men in white vans and stay away from strangers” we say. “Don’t go on this app or that one”, “If you are a girl dress conservatively or beware. If you are a boy you are obviously born with no impulse control so this is what you need to remember while you fight those natural urges”. But, of course, none of that is entirely true or vaguely helpful. Bad guys don’t always come in white vans, sometimes they are not even male. Strangers aren’t always bad and the people who might hurt you are not always strangers. This or that app might be dangerous but new ones pop up every day and bad people find new ways to exploit innocence on the internet (and children and teens find new ways to hide things from their parents). Girls who dress a certain way are not “asking for it” and boys are not all born with the urge to hurt people and lack of impulse control. These over generalisations that parents and educators sometimes give in order to try to protect our children, therefore, are bordering on useless when taught in isolation. Yes we should be teaching children what to look out for to stay safe from danger but even we do not know many of the signs until they have been reported on the news and they don’t always get reported in the news until a few terrible incidents have been discovered. In that case teaching facts and assumptions is not enough. In order to help children navigate the world in safety and make the choices that lead them to have a happy and fulfilled life we need to teach them how to make those choices when there are no adults around to ask (or they wouldn’t ask anyway even if one was sitting right next to them). We need to teach them how to think critically and creatively and consider all options and possibilities when making their choices. This is one of the benefits of using P4C in education - to give children those thinking skills to help them to navigate the world.
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AuthorMiss Magical Mess is a pre-school teacher and P4C Level 2B facilitator. After a shaky start as a P4C facilitator (P4C with 3 year olds... are you kidding?) Miss Magical Mess created her own approach to P4C and enquiry model and is now a big fan. Archives |