Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Socratic Argument! You can't beat it!

Listening to The Middle of Nowhere by Orbital

There came a plaintiff cry from the top of the stairs last night. My daughter was standing there with her illuminated globe, plug trailing on the floor, to announce that she was taking it into school today as she had to bring in something with Africa on it which she could point to. Now we vetoed this on grounds of there probably being a globe at school already and that taking in something almost as big as she is might cause some problems. We eventually located some World Atlases, which sent her to sleep happy. The point of this is that I cannot remember having to bring anything in to school when I was only 5. It seems that the National Curriculum is trying to make kids develop far sooner than is normal.

I did start taking things into school in the juniors; very often they were my Mother's medical books with their strange pictures of people with various afflictions (and little black blocks over their eyes to protect their identities). I don't remember ever having them confiscated as being too gruesome for small children but they were often objects of interest for my fellow pupils. The section on brain surgery was very popular though it only had drawings instead of photographs. My mother never actually commented on the huge space in the bookcase, which I suppose shows a tolerance of strange behaviour on my part. My wife tells me a story about a small boy she once taught who had an obsession with washing machines. He would run dementedly to the door when people visited to drag them along to watch the drum turning round. No more strange than taking in medical books to school. Anyway, all this has left be oddly un-squeamish though once I stumbled across a website with a picture of someone who had been caught by a speedboat propeller which was as about as gory as you could get and still be recognisably human. Made me feel slightly odd for a day or two.


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