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Childhood isn’t preparation for life, it is life

Angela Mollard

by Angela Mollard

29 May 05:50am

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Filed under: Childhood, Children, Parenting, School, School Curriculum

52 comments

When my daughter told me she felt stressed one Saturday morning, I did a double take. She’s 10. She sleeps with a stuffed bear and has drumsticks and dirty socks strewn across her bedroom floor.

More of this kind of shenanigans is needed

In my eyes, she’s still a child. Yet here she was, “stressed”. I asked her what it felt like (“Like I can’t really enjoy myself”) and why (“Because I have to write a speech and then do all this maths homework”).

I wrapped my arms around her and declared it a homework-free day. Instead, we went to the park. Later, we baked her favourite cake and read The Encyclopaedia of Immaturity together, in which we learnt how to make vegie-proof tongue covers and take photos that look as if your head’s fallen off.

That night, when I looked at the speech topics set by the Department of Education, my heart plummeted: “Multiculturalism in the media”, “Asylum seekers” and “When does a migrant become Australian?”

My daughter is a deep thinker and a voracious reader. But she isn’t auditioning for host of Lateline or membership of the UN.

Now, I’m not one to blame teachers – they’re dedicated and overworked unsung heroes – but I think they (and me, and society at large) are being driven by an increasingly narrow definition of success. (Is there any parent who didn’t pore over the My School league tables, or a teacher who wasn’t compelled to grill their students for the NAPLAN tests?)

Recently, a high-school principal told me her greatest challenge was the growing anxiety levels among students. Pastoral care, not academic results, had become her focus, because two pupils committed suicide at her previous school.

A clinical psychologist confirmed there are high levels of anxiety among this coached and extra-curricular driven generation. The good news, she says, is they can verbalise it.

“Mum, I just want to be a kid,” my friend’s 11-year-old son told her after he spent hours on a PowerPoint presentation differentiating between palaeontologists, geomorphologists and geophysicists (no, me neither).

Remember when childhood was all about wonder and curiosity and mud fights? Now it’s about marks and measures and motivation levels.

So, who’s to blame? Well, me for a start, because I get sucked in by this philosophy: I’m thrilled when my daughter aces a test or is chosen for the debating team.

And yet, in the letter I wrote on her last birthday (as I do every year) for her keepsake book, I find the following: “Sweetheart, last week I was in a hurry in the supermarket and pushed past an old lady. Instead, you stopped and watched to see if she could reach the pasta sauce on the top shelf. You are so accomplished, but most of all, I love the goodness in you.”

Our generation of hot housing parents needs to recalibrate our notion of success. My greatest achievement in life isn’t the mark I got in high-school English, but the fact I still quite like my husband, our kids are healthy and we have a few friends who continue to tolerate us.

Let’s commend our kids for who they are – not what they achieve. Yes, we need to teach them the key learning areas, but also to show them the real stuff: tolerance, resilience, compassion, loyalty, humour. Childhood isn’t preparation for life, it is life.

Catch Angela Mollard on Weekend Today, Sundays at 7am on the Nine Network.

Most commented

52 comments

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    • deb says:

      06:45am | 29/05/11

      Boy am i glad my kids are all growed up! Sounds like the pressure of school and having the latest gadget these days is unbearable. I can still remember weekends,out of the house at dawn,of on our bikes,the whole gang in our street.Out into the bush,exploring and being kids.School was strict but weekends were ours.Maybe its time to draw the line between homework after school and weekends for relaxing.
      Of course when i was a kid the only pressies we got were at xmas and one for our b/day.no keeping up with the jones.

      Reply

    • thanks Angela says:

      07:02am | 29/05/11

      My children swam in the ocean daily and climbed trees which we called phys ed. Their maths came from measuring the amount of flour and butter which pours into a cake. Compassion and diligence from watching their parents run medical centres and helping out. They gained balance by swinging of the hills hoist, language from reading billboards on the way to and from camps to hang out with friends. They learned work ethics from volunteering at radio and riding for the disabled and doing jobs for friends.

      My (now tween) kids have never seen the inside of a classroom and they’re doing just fine.

      It creeps me out when parents think to applaud the reading skills of a three year old. When kids need to be able to fill out their job application is early enough.

      Reply

    • Alicia says:

      11:42am | 29/05/11

      Are you seriously saying that kids shouldn’t be able to read until they need to fill out a job application?

    • marley says:

      12:49pm | 29/05/11

      I hope you realize that working out cake measurements isn’t mathematics - it’s arithmetic.  How are your kids doing on algebra and geometry?

    • MarK says:

      12:59pm | 29/05/11

      “riding for the disabled ” wtf does mean you hippy you.

    • thanks Angela says:

      02:50pm | 29/05/11

      I’m seriously saying that kids need to be able to add up, multiply, divide and subtract when they go out into the world on their own but before that is a little adult lunacy that kids unfortunately just have to put up with sadly at the expense of their other developments.

      My kids learned to read, write add up etc probably in less than a year all up. Not wanting to burst the school myth bubble here, just putting in my few cents worth.

      Riding for the Disabled is a voluntary, nonprofit organisation which provides horse riding opportunities for anyone with a disability in Australia. They are a wonderful organisation always on the lookout for volunteers and good safe riding horses.

      http://www.rda.org.au/

    • Fiona says:

      09:45pm | 29/05/11

      @marK a lot of people have heard of riding for the disabled, it’s been around for years.
      @thanks Angela, my kids love books, including my 7 year old, if they can’t read much at that age I would feel that they’re missing out on the opportunity of delving into others stories, it also inspires them to write their own (illustrated) stories. I appreciate your point, but do feel that you’re limiting their opportunities in that way.

    • Lexi says:

      07:17am | 30/05/11

      Actually marley, it’s two strands of mathematics - number and measurement. Children have to work out the value of the volume (eg three-quarters of a cup) and understand fractions (that 3/4 is equal to 1/4 x 3 or 1/2 + 1/4). It may also teach them mass (you need to weigh things like butter) and area (what size cake tin to use). Not that I am saying that I believe no schooling is ideal - in fact as a teacher I would say that baking cakes and reading billboards is excellent, as a means of bolstering what formal learning children experience at pre-school or school.

    • Shezza says:

      02:31pm | 31/05/11

      I’d put my unschooled kids up against schooled kids any day of the week to see who is more social, more tolerant, more relaxed, more fun, and still actually a kid.  My kids will also never see the inside of a classroom after what the education system created.  My 7 year old was reading at 4, by her choice, she’s also learned division way ahead of her time and has already mastered it.  Again, her choice.  We give her the tools when she asks the questions.  Schools are institutions where complete strangers raise your children, badly, I might add, for 6 hours a day and your child loses innocence and wonderment the first day they begin.  Thanks Angela, keep on doing what you are doing and lets rejoice that our children will have the spiritual, emotional, mental and intellectual levels required to be adults when they are adults and not be pushed into it at such an early age that it stifles both their love of learning and their emotional growth.

    • there's a price says:

      07:06am | 29/05/11

      Is any one aware that teaching our kids all this heady stuff at such a young age, is at the expense of their physical and emotional development?

      Reply

    • Erick says:

      07:37am | 29/05/11

      ‘... the speech topics set by the Department of Education ... “Multiculturalism in the media”, “Asylum seekers” and “When does a migrant become Australian?”’

      For a ten year old? Looks like a trend here - they’re all touchy subjects awash with political correctness.

      I strongly suspect that students are encouraged to express one particular point of view, and penalised if they express the wrong opinion. This isn’t education, it’s political indoctrination of vulnerable young minds.

      Reply

    • Adam Diver says:

      08:07am | 29/05/11

      How about these topics from the department of Education…

      “Hypocrisy in the media”
      “Illegal Economic Migrants”
      “What moral obligation does Australia have to migration and refugees?”

      Its easy to create loaded questions, its a shame that this is happening in our schools, and for a 10 year old, these issues are far too complex.

    • deb says:

      08:09am | 29/05/11

      Erick,i acually agree with you for a change.
      Careful,careful old son.

    • Stephy says:

      08:33am | 29/05/11

      You know Erick, I actually agree with you. “This is how you should feel towards these subjects, see? Now show me how you feel about asylum seekers…”
      Everyone has their own view of the subjects in question and often the opinion is divided around the nation. Teaching one opinion (and you can’t keep it unbiased, no matter how hard you try) in schools is unfair the child, and unfair to those who think differently.

    • BK says:

      08:56am | 29/05/11

      The questions are fine. The environment where students’ politics are being judged more than their writing is the problem.

    • Erick says:

      09:29am | 29/05/11

      Just consider the attitudes of Punch commenters who claim to be teachers. How would they present and mark these assignments, I wonder?

    • Seano says:

      09:30am | 29/05/11

      There’s nothing wrong with those questions. They only become “loaded” when you make paranoid assumptions.

    • Seano says:

      10:31am | 29/05/11

      “Just consider the attitudes of Punch commenters who claim to be teachers. How would they present and mark these assignments, I wonder? “

      There’s a marking scale that rates every sentence for adherence to leftist ideology.

      Despite the paranoia the primary focus of teachers is literacy not pushing any agenda.

    • Erick says:

      11:28am | 29/05/11

      If you’re a teacher, Seano, then I consider my point proven.

    • L. says:

      12:09pm | 29/05/11

      “Despite the paranoia the primary focus of teachers is literacy not pushing any agenda.”

      BS. My son in yr 9 was recently studying climate change in science. After watching Al Gore’s docco “An inconvenient Truth” they were told to write an essay on mans contribution to climate change, essentially an essay on AGW.

      My son asked if he could write it from the skeptics point of view. He was told no.

      To say an agenda isn’t pushed is an outright lie.

    • Seano says:

      02:55pm | 29/05/11

      @Erick

      ” If you’re a teacher, Seano, then I consider my point proven.”

      Been in a classroom lately have you champ? Glib comments don’t prove any point other than you’re going to believe what you want in the face of any evidence to the contrary. A good teacher has to leave a lot of things at the classroom door. But it’s easy to complain about political correctness and indoctrination when even children can see through your empty rhetoric.

      @L

      So is your objection teaching to an agenda or is it just to an agenda you don’t agree with?

      “To say an agenda isn’t pushed is an outright lie.”

      One incident doesn’t make an agenda for one teacher let alone all teachers. Without the full context I can’t comment in detail except to say maybe the teacher wanted the student to repond to the material presented for some reason.

      Most teachers I know myself included (someone who accepts the science over the right wing rhetoric) would happily allow the child to take the sceptics point of view as long as they used quality sources as references.

    • Lucy says:

      04:18pm | 29/05/11

      But when that 10 yo is going to type the whole statement into Google and then regurgitate it you need to make it difficult.

    • bec says:

      05:48am | 30/05/11

      Ideology doesn’t enter into it. As a teacher, If I was asked to give that to year 4-5 students, I’d pitch a fit because the content is inappropriately difficult for the majority of the cohort.

    • L. says:

      08:36am | 29/05/11

      “Remember when childhood was all about wonder and curiosity and mud fights?”

      I’m sorry to break it to you, but the modern romantic notion of a “childhood” is really no more than 80 or so years old.

      In the “olden days”, except for the children of people of title or the very wealthy, kids were worked, beaten, sold, sexually abused or prostituted themselves for food. In fact, if you want to see this part of human history captured for your enjoyment, just visit any 3rd world country or Asian sweatshop.

      I put it to you that the past 80 yrs and possibly the next few hundred will be an aberration in history as far as “traditional” childhoods are concerned. Enjoy it will you can..

      Reply

    • Condor says:

      02:25pm | 29/05/11

      It will be short-lived.

      The middle-class in Australia will soon be obsolete as all their jobs will be sent off-shore. The only jobs that will remain are trades, menial service jobs and professions that require specific local knowledge.

      Some of these jobs will be highly paid (the professions who can feed off the super-profits of multinationals) or lowly paid (everyone else whose job relies on what amount people can afford to pay them, namely menail service jobs).

      What you set your child up to do will determine their future. Do you set them up to be a doctor, investment banker or lawyer, or doom them to be in a lowly paid customer service position?

    • Seano says:

      09:35am | 29/05/11

      I teach casually when I’m not looking after my daughters, usually at schools with a majority of Asian students. A large number of the kids go to tutoring after school and on Saturdays. No organised sport or other social activities because there’s just no time. I think that’s quite sad.

      Reply

    • MarK says:

      01:01pm | 29/05/11

      “.....usually at schools with a majority of Asian students.”

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      How typically politically correct of you son

    • Seano says:

      03:03pm | 29/05/11

      ”  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

        How typically politically correct of you son”

      Wow. On the fast track to a tin foil hat with troll written on the front there MarK.

      Yes where I teach in Sydney the vast majority of the kids are from Asian backgrounds. There’s nothing politically incorrect by saying that.

      Your misuse of the term only demonstrates that you’re the type to scream it without actually understanding it. But that’s typical of your “commentary” all over.

    • Ally says:

      09:39am | 29/05/11

      I’ve been saying the same thing for years.  Kids need to learn, but when so many kids can’t read and write do they really need to be learning about “Multiculturalism in the media”, “Asylum seekers” and “When does a migrant become Australian?”  at such a young age.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      09:44am | 29/05/11

      I know quite a few children and I can talk to them normally and they look and respond to me as I and others did 40 odd years ago. No problem there.
      The topics at school are different, though, yet those you mentioned are surely introductory lessons and only up for general discussion, like global warming, and maybe the future of the retailer, etc.
      These are the things their parents may be thinking, and it’s good that schools are bringing common social developments into the classroom.

      I suspect, however, that, (though I’m certainly no teacher) there is too much homework, and it is given too early on in a students life.
      I’ve seen 6 year olds at home grapple with words and sums when their playtime with neighbours and friends is sacrificed. Then they learn to worry.
      Not good. And then their parents worry, thinking there’s something wrong with their offspring, then children pick up anxieties and the household loses its balance.
      School’s really an adjunct : the child’s life is set in stone, and you’re, (yes, you, the parent) the Master, so I reckon that biological connection takes all precedence and there’s a word you Ms. M. forgot : Love.

      Reply

    • Adam Diver says:

      10:11am | 29/05/11

      I suggest there should be no homework, until at least high school, and even then very limited. If you can’t teach kids sufficiently in 7 hours of schooling a day, then there is an issue.

    • Alicia says:

      11:47am | 29/05/11

      I agree, Adam. I can’t remember getting proper homework until I was in high school. Primary school work was more focused on ‘projects’ that we had several weeks to do - and that was cutting out picture of planets or dinosaurs and making a poster. Not creating a speech about asylum seekers. The speech topics are ridiculous for a ten year old, it would be better suited to a senior high school student.

    • Fiona says:

      12:00pm | 29/05/11

      @Stephen “the child’s life is set in stone”, seriously??? In that case, why isn’t my husband a wife/child beater, gambler, alcoholic, cheater? There’s a reason there is a debate on nature VS nurture, because there is room for a debate.
      Homework varies school to school, but there probably is too much emphasis on it., but if you as the parent (master) try to ban it for your child, you will have dramas. It’s probably better done en masse than individually.

    • Lucy says:

      04:26pm | 29/05/11

      There has ALWAYS been homework or have you all forgotten having a reading and sums you had to do in primary school. I know I remember having to read to my Mum in grade 2 and having to learn spelling words and my times tables and create posters etc. I went to a public school in the 1970’s.

    • stephen says:

      04:31pm | 29/05/11

      Well Fiona I was thinking that only parents should have an emotional interest in their offspring. Yet I’ve seen, (as a tutor) too much ‘care’ and so-called social manipulation by qualified teachers at the expense of proper and emphatic instruction in the designated subject, to worry at the outcome.
      I’m not a cold person by any means, and even I, upon meeting parents, (and some of the most working-class folk I’m thinking of) are surprized at the lack of discipline in the classroom.
      Young people need a definite and intelligent instruction.
      In the classroom.
      When they go home, love and generosity take over.
      But not before.

    • Fiona says:

      09:54pm | 29/05/11

      It was just the set in stone comment that confused me. I work with psychologists in the early childhood area (lucky me!) and they are constantly banging on about how “plastic” a small child’s brain is and how early experiences “wire” your brain a certain way,  Stephen.

    • Glen says:

      10:09am | 29/05/11

      “...but the fact I still quite like my husband…” - LOL just not quite as much as before hey? I feel sorry for this man already.

      I think it is probably a good thing for children to have to vomit back to their teachers the useless leftist politicised garbage the academic world wraps itself in (though in the case of K-12 teachers one uses the term academic loosely). Now kids will realise they have to pretend to conform at an early age rather then later accidentally espouse their politically right views to the university politburo, who have no qualms about failing an anti-leftist themed essay. It could cost them much more later on, believe me I know (my essay against estate tax many years ago was crucified hehe).

      Call it for what it is - grooming the future Labor voter; I am more optimistic the reality will be a generation of kids who resent the left.

      Reply

    • Adam says:

      04:08pm | 29/05/11

      So you wrote an essay years ago, and it was slammed? I am a current post-graduate student at university and the situation you have described just is not the norm. Provided that a sound argument, not made up of fallacies and lies, and based on sound sources for evidence is provided, then all essay should (in theory) be marked equally. I have never had to get an essay re-marked for arguing against the viewpoint of my lecturers, but even if bias is suspected at least the option to get a 2nd opinion on your mark is there.

      I’m not going to pretend that all universities are balanced between the right and left, because it’s a fact that most are more left-leaning, but that doesn’t take away from the independence of thought that all students are allowed.

    • Blake says:

      10:32am | 29/05/11

      You wrote how accomplished she was for her on her tenth Birthday? I believe that a big part of the problem now with so many people being diagnosed with mental illness, and anxiety, is because of the constant need to feel validated via compliments.

      I think it’s you making her so precious…

      Reply

    • Gladys says:

      11:45am | 29/05/11

      Buggar me. A 10-year-old is being asked to write a speech - rather than prepare a ‘talk’ and the topics are set? Rather than choosing to talk about cats or dogs or garden snails?

      No wonder she was stressed. I think I would write the last one btw. At least that could be based on facts.

      Reply

    • Bruce says:

      01:23pm | 29/05/11

      Gladys: The 10 year may have to write a damn good speech, the teacher and schools rating, and funding may depend on it !! This is where the stress is coming from.

    • Gladys says:

      02:49pm | 29/05/11

      Piffle. I’ve got all this ahead me so I’d better get my desktop research skills up to date so I can help my child find the right stuff too.

    • Kate says:

      07:09pm | 29/05/11

      Yeah, this is a bit weird! I finished primary school 12 years ago, and the most we had to give a ‘speech’ on was ‘My Holiday’ or ‘My Family’ or something like that.

    • Concerned says:

      01:36pm | 29/05/11

      Schools should teach our children how to read and write, how to study, and importantly HOW to think and reason, NOT WHAT to think. Students should learn how to research, discerns fact from fiction and to look and observe. They should learn logic. Communist governments and other isms (including the Nazi’s) have long used schools to promote propaganda and state ideals and Australia is fast adopting such a mentality and it is time for parents via their P&Cs; to do something about it and if not involved, get involved, or your child’s life will be taken over and they will become a programmed mini-mes rather than someone who can rationalise and spot BS a mile away. It is so scary!

      And absolutely no homework for a primary school child - they should be encouraged to read books, play music, go to outdoor activities, get outside and experience life and then talk about it back at school. A 10 year old should not feel stressed about school. It is making a future client for the shrink’s prescription pad.

      Reply

    • bikinis on top says:

      03:07pm | 29/05/11

      the childish believe that childhood is not real life.
      the senile believe that childhood can last forever.

      Reply

    • Gerard says:

      03:11pm | 29/05/11

      The modern ‘education’ system is about as efficient as an incandescent light bulb. I can honestly say that everything I learnt at school prior to year 5 could have been covered in less than a month. Most of what I learnt in high school was useless trivia. Two years of primary school and three of high school would have been more than enough. Alternatively, have say 8 or 9 years of school with absolutely no homework. The obsession with work for the sake of work brings to mind something Douglas Adams said:

      “Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much…the wheel, New York, wars and so on…while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man…for precisely the same reason.”

      Reply

    • Christie says:

      07:26pm | 29/05/11

      lol Gerard, when was the last time you visited the asylum?

      i agree though i have alot of friends who are teachers and i occasionally help them mark homework ( a task which all teachers hate with a passion btw) and the work the grade 2s are doing is even beyond me!!!

    • Soos says:

      03:29pm | 29/05/11

      @ MarK says:12:59pm | 29/05/11
      “riding for the disabled ” wtf does mean you hippy you….
      this is where able-bodied and -minded people of alll ages and walks of life volunteer to help disabled people of all ages and walks of life ride a horse, be it saddling the horse, leading with the reins, walking beside the horse and rider as a suppport, and generally encouraging the rider…where does the “hippy” bit apply?

      Reply

    • MarK says:

      11:48pm | 29/05/11

      It was an honest question. Never heard of riding for the disabled. What a novel idea.

      Keeping the kids out of school and letting them learn life experience from volunteer work sounds a bit hippy to me kid.

      Pray tell what you think hippy like behaviour is?

      I call shenanigans on your ass.

    • whatahooha says:

      06:33pm | 31/05/11

      @Mark, perhaps you would have ended up in a different place altogether if your parents or school had taken you to RftD to help out when you were a young impressionable and sweet kid, with your fringe hanging over your face and freckles on your nose.

    • Cat says:

      05:20pm | 29/05/11

      I dont pour over My School because it is bloody worthless in a lot of cases, the figures given can’t go anywhere near giving an accurate picture of every school. Absolutely there were schools who did not grill the kids over naplan, you also tend to find there are schools have high rates of kids not taking the test because parents disagree with how these tests are now being used and the effect it has. I am one such parent. My son was told he could do the test if he wanted, if he chose to he was told to try and enjoy it and no, we wont stress over the results because we are not daft enough to think that naplan is anything more than a snapshot of one day and how they were up to performing on one day - there is a reason it doesn’t count towards their end of year results.

      I don’t blame the teachers I blame the makers of the curriculum, I blame the people who designed My School, I blame the policy makers who are so out of touch with child development and the parents who keep pushing to shove adulthood at kids in the false belief that this gives them some advantage later in life. They are robbing children of their childhood, they are robbing teachers of their ability to deliver a quality, holistic curriculum and for no good reason.

      Ask the education experts and they will advise against systems like Naplan, they will advise against huge amounts of homeworks and pushing students too hard too early. They will tell you the best educational systems are ones which are child focused and make learning relevant and enjoyable. They will say the schools that refuse to set kids up against eachother in competition and reward/punish systems, but rather encourage everyone equally, are the ones which get more kids enthusiastic and willing to give something a go.

      We do need to stop and take a look at how we are doing things, because one thing has been proven and that is you don’t get better results by just doing more of the same thing or doing the same thing twice as hard as before.

      Reply

    • BlancheMoses says:

      02:01pm | 29/11/11

      According to my own analysis, millions of people on our planet get the loans at good banks. Thence, there’s good chances to get a car loan in every country.

      Reply
 
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