to be unimpressed by dd's teacher's explanation to her reception class about the strike tomorrow?

[littleducks]

DD is very good at quoting exactly, usually employed to embarass me! Although I admit the context is often lost.

Apparently dd's teacher told her that her class won't be coming in tomorrow as 'the government is taking away their (teacher's) money and making the work on and on and on'

DD wanted to know what the goverment is and why they were stealing the teachers money at bedtime.

I had told her she had tomorrow off previously, but hadnt gioven any explanantion really just said it was a 'holiday' like I had for the inset day next Mon.

How are children supposed to know how to form opinions on things if they never encounter people who have opinions on things? That's one of the reasons why so many kids are politically apathetic and don't bother voting when they reach an age.

And I wasn't referring to 5 year olds of course! I was talking about the person who thought that teachers shouldn't discuss politics with their pupils.

Of course not eightieschick - that's what I said.

Sounds fair enough to me.

Saying that tomorrow is a holiday is actually depriving your daughter of 'Knowledge about the world' viz a viz EYFS.

Children should be encouraged to form opinions on things. When they are 5 - whether they prefer custard to ice-cream or whether Chip was naughty for hiding the ball in their latest Oxford Reading Tree book. NOT whether the governments are money- grabbing promise-breakers or not.

Why not?

Excellent posts, Thruaglassdarkly.

Why shouldn't children be encouraged to form opinion on the government?

Rosebud DS1 was 4 years and 1 week when he started reception. I think his grasp of the concept of government would have been pretty shaky in YR so he wouldn't have been able to form an opinion on something he was too young to really understand. He is now in Y3 and I would have the discussion with him now if his teacher was on strike.

Rosebud - because they are 5 yo in the OPs class!!! Too young - let them be children, at least for a tiny bit longer without having to worry about governmenty nonsense that plagues the rest of us. Oh to be 5 again !!!

Why thank you Quin :-) Your posts are pretty hot also

FFS, having an opinion on something important isn't contradictory to 'letting them be children'.

My 4.2 year old was with me on a local protest against the cuts to public services last weekend. Some parents (inc myself) went into the nursery the week beforehand and made some placards with the kids. Some children didn't ask what they were for; those that did we gave a simple explanation to.

My dd would like her children's centre kept open and none of the staff to lose their job.

I'm don't agree that engaging with children about an important topic that is all around them is somehow depriving them of their childhood.

The point is that 5 years are not able to think laterally, question ideas put to them, weigh up the rights and wrongs, etc, etc. As such, they can't form opinions in the way an adult can - by questioning what they hear, understanding all sides of the debate and coming to a conclusion.

So, if they are told something, they tend to just soak it up and accept it.

This is not 'having an opinion'. This is being told something and accepting it as truth without question. This is all 5 year olds are capable of, unless they're of an inquisitive nature, in which case they might question it further with their parents. Or they might not; they might just accept it as 'truth'.

So - if someone is providing them with information that has a slant, they're giving the child their opinion, not putting the child (who's too young anyway) in a position to form their own opinion.

A debate presenting the various sides of the issue would be the only way to do this and I imagine a 5 year old would switch off pretty quickly once talk turns to trade unions, employment contracts, the deficit and spending cuts.

So the teacher gave a simple pared down reply explaining the facts - ie that Many workers will have more money taken from their pay, but will receive less back, and will have to work for longer.
And you told your dd she just has a 'holiday'

And your Problem is?!!

Honestly, it really seems like some mothers have nothing better to do that sit around thinking up the next thread moaning about something a school has allegedly done wrong! Idle hands.....

Littleduck I think that if your child is old enough to understand about the economic difficulties/political situations faced by other countries and to willingly participate in fund raising activities for said countries then I think she is perfectly capable of understanding the economic difficulties/political situation in her own.

Oh and that is a pretty big if.

But if you're prepared to educate in one you should be prepared to educate in the other.

I think both the teacher and the OP gave unimpressive explanations, and I wouldn't be happy with either of them.

The teacher should not be giving a partisan view to the children (no matter how strong the teacher's personal feelings are). The parent should not be saying it's a holiday.

The children need first to understand what a strike is, and then that teachers are striking. I would want the "main" explanation to be neutral - the Government has to decide how it spends the tax money it takes from us. There have been changes proposed for lots of people whose pay comes from the Government. Teachers are one such group. (Add detail of how pensions work if the children are up to it). They are striking to show how strongly they are against the cuts, but the two sides are talking to each other and the final proposals aren't due out until the autumn anyhow.

Figurative language like "stealing" is too much for young children IMHO (don't like it is sex ed either) and can easily skew perceptions. Teachers really need to be careful about what they say in the classroom. The latest YouGov polls show only around 40% of the public support the strikes - that means there are likely to be parents who may object vociferously if they see this as propaganda in the classroom. Such reactions, if they get airtime (which they will), will not foster support for industrial action. So it's both unwise and something of an "own goal" if a teacher is doing something like this.

The CBBC Newsround website is always a good source when looking for appropriate ways to describe news stories to children.

For info; here is the CBBC explanation.

"Hundreds of thousands of teachers in England and Wales are planning not to go to school on Thursday because they voted to strike.

"A strike is when a group of workers agree to stop working to protest against something they think is unfair.

"The teachers are angry because the government wants to make changes to their pensions, which they say will leave them worse off.

"But the government says it's fair to ask teachers to pay a bit more."

Apologies: quick diversion:

< threefeethighandrising: always nice to find someone who must be my age! Did you also lose your milk in 1968 under the first round of abolition by Harold Wilson? Thatcher's continuation of that policy was a bit later (after my time - about 1971? >

As you were.

thats pretty much how i explained it to my husband seems like a pretty good explaination of it actually, its true and theres not too much information

Nobody is 'taking away pensions', the public sector workers just have to pay a bit more towards them and work a bit longer. Like everyone working in the private sector does. Where is the injustice?
Nonsense.
[yaaaawn]

Personally I do think she was passing on a political opinion and that she shouldn't do that as it compromises her role of educator.

ON the other hand, I as a parent probably would have come up with a more accurate explanation than a "holiday". But maybe that is because I had the kind of child who always wanted to understand things.

I would have said something like "Sometimes the people who work and the people who give them work don't agree about how much they should get paid or how long they should work or how much money they should get when they are too old to work. So they have to talk and talk about it. If they still can't agree, then the people who work can do something called "go on strike". It means they stop working, usually only for a day or two, to show the others that they are serious about it. That is what the teachers are doing tomorrow, because they can't agree with the people who give them work about the money they should get when they get old."

There are lots of things adults/teachers say to children they don't understand.

I very much doubt your dd was frightened by the teachers explanation ???

That's what you are there for - to explain things she might mis- understand.

Well it's not the whole truth is it ?

I think it is poor judgement on behalf of the teachers to give out half truths.

Any teacher doing this, and particularly to a reception class, is not able to think the matter of what to tell the children through in an intelligent unbiased manner. Makes you wonder how well suited they are to being someone who teaches children to think for themselves and to research/find out the whole picture about any issue.

It's like saying the government killed cows to explain the foot and mouth crisis or the government kills badgers to explain theories behind the spread of TB in cattle.

Demonstrates a poor quality of character/lack of aptitude to being a truly good teacher, regardless of whether they support strike action or not.

I would be furious, a reception aged child is unlikely to grasp the economic argument and it is therefore not right to plant only the other side of the argument in their minds.

Did the teacher explain that ALL workers (including the children's own mummies and daddys) will be working on and on and getting less in their monthly pay packet due to the fact that they have to pay more into a pension scheme if they are to maintain the previously planned projected pension income level ?

Teachers are in a special position, they are seen as figures of authority and a source of the facts as far as children are concerned so the action of teachers who do this kind of thing is doubly deplorable/irresponsible/manipulative for personal gain.