Literacy news
Three is a magic number, so we need to get them young
7 Dec 2009
Writing in The Scotsman, Lesley Riddoch describes the amount of money and effort currently wasted on “retrofitting” skills onto the teenage and adult casualties of poor childhood learning experience, and looks at how much might be saved in cash, confidence, and citizen engagement if the authorities spent on the early years instead.
In Norway, they do just this - every child has a statutory right to a kindergarten place from one to six for an eye-watering maximum of £200 per month. Children spend the bulk of the day outdoors – often in snow and temperatures of minus 5 degrees – fully equipped by the school in top-of-the-range, thermal, waterproof, gear. The kindergartens are often situated near farms so the kids can feed and play with animals, collecting eggs and washing them for sale, growing tomatoes, making hay and even watching slaughtered cows being dissected to learn more about animal biology. The Norwegian belief is that children divorced from the whole of nature – the cycles of life and death -- become couch potatoes, estranged from the outdoors and less independent, confident, co-operative and happy as young adults.
An activity centre in Arctic Bodo is part of every local pupil’s week – especially children with autism, learning difficulties, hyperactivity and truanting tendencies. They drive on quad bikes, abseil on cliffs, climb trees, drive go-karts and eat and learn outside around sheltered camp fires. As educational pioneer Henny Aune puts it, “Children have more physical energy than adults and children with attention issues have more energy still. They just need to run it off. Then they can focus.”
Lesley says how “This approach is not only humane and sensible it gets results. The sort employers actually want. Scottish employers placed the following skills top in a 2004 Future Skills survey – planning and organisation, customer handling, problem solving, team working and oral communication. Literacy and numeracy were right at the bottom of the priority list.
"At what age are these missing “soft” skills learned? 0-3. At what age does Scotland spend least education money? 0-3. At what age did Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman discover the maximum “bang for educational bucks”? Age 3. How are soft skills most easily acquired at the age of 3 – through engaged play in extended families or in kindergartens.
“And what are we doing? Keeping kids in splendid and solitary isolation at home or sending a few to under-funded nurseries before the school gates finally swing open and mothers finally get free, full-time, day care for their children while they work.
“So the remedy for Scotland is clear. Excellent teaching and small classes plus dark nights causing a reading tradition plus soft skill development through outdoor learning at kindergarten plus support not exclusion for slower children plus a “no-one is left behind” outlook plus no profit-making schools plus a homogenous, equal society that spends four times more on 0-3 -- all these factors contribute to Nordic success.
“The result is equal, happy, skilful adults living in a non-remedial society.”
(The Scotsman, 7 December)
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