In summer children should be allowed to be children

Education Anthony Sutch
The first two weeks of July are always filled with school sports days and prize days. This year I gave away prizes at seven different junior schools. Such days are always fun. It is usually the last day of term and of the academic year. The children are filled with excitement. They are excited at the prospect of a long holiday, or the thoughts of the prizegiving and at the presence of so many parents, friends and relations. The teachers are tired, even exhausted, but proud of a year of good work having been done. There is both sadness and joy at pupils moving on. It is an emotional day.
I noted the exhilarated babble of the day: a sense of suppressed ebullience. There always seems to be much hugging and kissing, as well as thanking and congratulating. At our prize day, after the ceremony, the children had romped about the place and rolled down banks: it was lovely to see their childish play. I recalled a First Communion service I had attended. All the children were smartly dressed: the girls in white dresses, the boys in black trousers and white shirts. They all had a huge tumble down the three banks in front of Downside Abbey. Covered in grass
stains, they had been giggling and laughing and shouting. Their parents were indulged. I just thought how wonderful it was to see children being children.
Something similar had been in the conversation I had with a friend who had been to Turkey for her holiday. She had found a remote village on the Marmara Sea to stay. She remarked upon how lovely it was to see the local children entertaining themselves at play. On the beach all day they had made sandcastles, fished, swam, investigated the rock pools and played games. No burger bars or ice cream vans or sophisticated Western toys had been needed for these children to be children.
As is my wont, I then thought of the way our educational system is developing. Are we allowing our children sufficient time to enjoy their childhood? Is there time to be, time to play, time to make mistakes and be irresponsible, time to fantasise and imagine.
In his book Lost Icons, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, notes what I too believe is being forgotten by those re-shaping our educational policies.
He notes: "The acquiring and refining of language is a long and complex process, never moving at precisely the same rate in different subjects. And part of that process as every parent and teacher is aware is play; because to learn language is to discover, by trial and error, what I can seriously be committed to when I open
my mouth, what I'm ready to answer for." We all know the pressures on children and parents caused by our examination-dominated system. We have read of the increase of child stress, misbehaviour and illness since the introduction of publicly assessed exams.
Yet again Dr Williams has an interesting insight: "For them [children] to be free for responsibility and fantasy, free from the commitments of purchasing and consuming, is for them to have time to absorb what is involved is adult choice. Failure to understand that is losing the very concept of childhood".
'have also recently read Gerard Hughes's God, Where Are You? Writing of his own childhood, he noted how only at the age of 10 years did classes become interesting. It was a teacher, Mr Maguire, "a storyteller, lover of music, commentator on local news and a gossip", who brought learning alive. "He made us laugh, was never sarcastic, and showed little interest in class marks and places."
Later in the book he noted St Thomas Aquinas's Nil in intellectu nisi pruis fuprit in serum All knowledge begins in the senses. Fr Gerard goes on: draw the conclusion, with which I heavily agree: "In all education, the senses must be stimulated, imagination nurtured, and the child must be encouraged to explore and experiment, for it is out of this process that ideas are born."