It was our anniversary today and we walked up this evening to our friends’ farm. They have been working flat out for the last four weeks and the fruits of their labours were running all over the fields.
I love it at this time of year when the lambs gang together and run as a group from one place to another. It’s hard to believe that these happy, careless and free spirits transform themselves into “sheep”. It made me wonder about how we treat our own children – do we expect them to be sheep when they are just lambs? Perhaps we need to let children have more space to be themselves before they conform to our adult expectations?
A fellow teacher and I were talking about this after school today. We were saying that we often push the kids to achieve things so much sooner than we did even 5 years ago, and as a result they often times miss out on some of the experiences of being the 9/10 years old that they are. They achieve one goal, we congratulate them and immediately ask how we can make them EVEN better. However, it appears that in today’s fast-paced society, if we allow them to just be the lambs that they are and not turn into sheep too soon, they may get left behind. The only way it will change, is if society opens their eyes and relaxes the expectations that on only achievement is over achievement.
I saw lambs today, always one of the best things about Spring for me!
I agree that we are trying to get children to achieve quickly, I find in schools achievement can sometimes just mean the next level e.g in maths or reading. It mean a wide variety of things, not just the official bit of paper or certificates.
Society has changed and children are being children for shorter and shorter periods of time. This is apparent in the way they speak to you in class (in a challenging or cheeky manner) and the way some children who still might act in a childish way get made fun of.
Children do the same things adults do now – they watch any film they like despite age ratings, own mobile phones and have the latest technology at home in their bedrooms. They resent being told what to do in class as some of them are allowed to do what they want outside of school. Unfortunately a lot are becoming sexually active at a very young age now too.
I don’t have a point to this apart from that it makes me sad. This is just how society is changing and I don’t think there is much we can do, apart from adapt learning and teaching to accommodate these changes and provide support.