Children Embrace Their Educators’ Attitudes, So Don’t Forget To Teach Them To Love Planet Earth
While hopes and dreams are all well and good, some concrete and practical beliefs in your school ethos can help children make concrete and practical change
So – another day and another priceless visit to a friend of mine who has four bouncy offspring at very interesting stages of people-ness, in particular an attentive five-year-old. But first…
I am always amused by the way in which some schools append straplines to their names: once St John’s Primary School, now St John’s Primary School – Dream It! Believe It! Achieve It! Once Dunsthorpe Academy, now Dunsthorpe Academy – Delivering Excellence in Every Aspect of Our Learning Offer! Once Moresdale Middle School, now Moresdale Middle School – Specialising in Technical Morphography for Tomorrow’s Technical Morphographists.
Okay, I exaggerate, but there are some funny ones out there, and I didn’t make the first one up – just borrowed it from another school not called St John’s.
Many schools have also moved beyond their traditional ‘behaviour policies’ or lower key ‘ground rules’ (the latter almost always blu-tacked to the classroom wall on a sheet of sagging flip-chart paper) to a more all-embracing statement of values and beliefs. When I visit schools and settings I am curious to see which character traits they include in these statements. The most popular in my citizen science survey so far is ‘hope’.
Which leads me back to my five-year-old. She has clearly and wholeheartedly bought into her school’s vision and values, and during my visit was quick to apply this to an unfavoured classmate. When asked why she didn’t get on with her, she held her arms out in a gesture of abject despair: “She just doesn’t have hope! There’s no hope there! What am I supposed to do?”
Quite apart from feeling distinctly sorry for this poor morsel of childhood who had fallen out of friendship and was clearly somewhat down about it, I saw this as an example of how strongly children buy into the ethos, vision and values of the teachers and school staff around them. Whether or not they are darlings in the classroom, they do still have a sneaking admiration for the leaders of their educational experience and will often seek to follow them.
This brought to mind a Cambridge University-led project we’re currently involved with, which is exploring how to reduce sedentary behaviour in children at school. It has taken many months to work through the rigid requirements of published academia to get to a point where we can actually get into a real school and test some interventions.
A Delphi exercise took about 20 proposed interventions and tested them to see which were the most well supported by staff, parents, pupils and health professionals. They were weighed in terms of feasibility, popularity (buy in) and those that they deemed would achieve the most significant outcomes.
Interestingly the two interventions that came out on top overwhelmingly across all consultees were ‘Active lessons, including lessons out of doors’ and ‘Teacher-modelled behaviour’. The first speaks for itself, but the second was really interesting as it reflects the experience with my five-year-old above.
All respondents – teachers, parents and pupils – recognised that the values a teacher holds and how they behave has the power to influence the way children think or view the world around them. I guess this isn’t rocket science as far as all good teachers are concerned, but how often do we use it as a tool for good?
For example, if a teacher is keen to go outside, even if the weather is cold; if they show an interest in the natural word around them – and if they are seen to value that natural world and they extol the benefits of connecting with nature – will they instil in their pupils a love of, and respect for, the world around them? Will they fashion the minds of the future to be eco-sensitive, environmentally friendly and respectful of our planet? And will that in turn mean that life on Earth has a better and brighter chance of survival?
Just a thought…
Juno Hollyhock is executive director of Learning Through Landscapes, a UK charity dedicated to enhancing outdoor learning and play for children. For services and resources for early years settings, visit ltl.org.uk. Browse Earth Day activities.
