Why don't we learn this anymore?

[sweatyshower]

I was chatting with my grandad and he said when he was a child he'd try to find the full set of birds eggs. He said that they learnt about native/ lical birds and their eggs at school.
how lovely! I wish I had learnt that. the little I know if from him And my nan teaching us but I didn't think they'd learn about birds at school.

He said him and his mates would break into the old disused mill and look at all the birds eggs. Some were green / blue / spotted. He knew the names of all the birds and what their eggs looked like.

I really think that would be really nice to know. bring it back!

Genuine question: if you want to know this stuff, why haven't you googled it?

It's entirely possible to learn this stuff for yourself if you're interested. Even if you'd been taught it at school, you'd probably have forgotten about it by now, or it would be outdated - there are trends in local agriculture, and crops grown now that were rare 20 years ago.

This kind of information is actually available fairly readily via Google.

Do schools really have to teach everything an adult might later wonder about? I mean, there’s a monument I drive past locally - should I expect my primary school to have taught me and now my children all about it, or should I just Google it to find out what it commemorates? I saw an unusual looking beetle in my garden - should I expect schools to teach every kind of beetle? What about when the bin truck goes past and I idly wonder how they separate all the different bits of recycling? What about the symptoms of various illnesses? Different types of trains and locomotives?

Honestly I’d rather my children learnt how to find out information for themselves than were taught obscure facts they’ll probably never remember.

No!

Never learnt about birds eggs at school as we all knew it was illegal and cruel to touch them. My urban primary school had a nature garden - though it was just the garden then - and for years my class had frogs spawn which turned into frogs. We would regularly go on what seemed very long walks to one of the local commons to do activities varying from art to science to maths.

That sounds lovely.

My friends found a beautiful egg shell out walking. They gave it to DC to take to primary school to show and ask what bird it had come from. School said they didn’t know and weren’t interested at all. This is a very rural village school for context.

In a similar vein, we drive past fields of 'stuff' growing, and I wonder what it is.
I wish Id been taught what different crops look like and when you would expect them to be harvested etc....

What's stopping you finding out? Take a photo, go home and look it up.

When I was a child, there were the I-Spy and Observer's books, small pocket sized books on a range of subjects which told you what to look out for. The I-Spy books as I recall had spaces for you to record when and where you'd seen each thing, and I think there might have been a club or something associated with the books.

Ladybird published books such as What to Look for in Spring etc, and other nature titles - maybe still do, I don't know. They always had high quality illustrations by known artists such as Rowland Hilder.

At primary school, we had a nature table & people used to bring in items

We used to play conkers on a string in the Autumn

this
Also I never said I agree with him disturbing nests but I was astonished he could describe different eggs and birds so well. I thought it was an old man hobby not school taught knowledge

A big 'no'! Even if someone 'just looks' that can be enough for the parent birds to abandon the nest: as far as they are concerned the site has been identified by predators and is no longer safe. So even peeping in threatens the nest.

With the amount of avian flu about probably best to leave the birds alone
Although in our area they want to record location of dead birds. Changing times?

? you think nan is misremembering her own life. thanks stranger on the Internet.

But I do agree it is a shame that what was called 'nature studies' is no longer taught: eg tree leaves brought in for identification, draw your favourite bird etc

You’re insane. Do you seriously think that schools have time for this? Plus it’s exactly the sort of people that climb up and “look at” birds eggs that eventually turn into such nutters that the RSPB have to heavily protect some breeding birds nests. Far better to teach respect for wildlife and ecology.

There's nothing stopping anyone learning about nature and wildlife, and passing that onto their children. Your local wildlife trust may well have courses or groups you can join, visit local nature reserves, get yourself some beginner's guidebooks, look up Facebook groups, there are loads of free apps out there. It's in everyone's power to learn about the world around them and take control of their own knowledge, rather than lamenting that no-one is doing it for you.

Yes children did used to do this and I was taught at school (in the 90s) NOT to disturb birds eggs, wild animals and not to pick wildflowers!

I'm interested to know why you assume it should be schools that teach this?

I've taught mine loads of this kind of thing- trees and identifying leaves, footprints, birds and raptors we see in the sky. It's not like you need to go to the library anymore- we just google it. We found an empty egg shell last year; turns out it belongs to a pigeon. We just looked it up. It was surprisingly small. We had a free poster from the RSPB which helps us identify birds. We do a free butterfly count each year- free app- and this helps us identify butterflies.

We can teach kids to respect the climate on both a big and small scale. We discovered we have a hedgehog living behind our shed- so we looked up how best to help him/her in our garden. Slug pellets are a big no-no and included cutting a small hole in the wire at the end of our garden so s/he could move about freely. Sometimes the best way to teach kids about the natural world/climate is on a small scale at home.

Great post by @Glitterandcard

I used to love those @Zosime

I think its lovely too, I'm glad the school spends time on this even if some people might think the time would be better spent on other subjects, but the curriculum here gives a lot of time to non core subjects (although this nature stuff is in a core subject, environmental science), things like music and handicrafts, and I think that's actually really important in education and its a shame when schools give them less time in order to give more time to maths etc.

My sister was born in 1954 she wrote on slates in her village school books were not allowed home but read at the teachers table called up to read in turn. The mobile library in the village started in the early 70s so the first chance to borrow a book.

I wasn't taught this but don't think it would've added much to my educational experience tbh

Crikey! I was born in 1955 but we had paper at school. I had never heard of that from anyone my age (used little blackboards as a teacher though from 80s in addition to paper). I had books as a young child and lived in a very remote place for a while. When we moved to a town we went to the library every week.

It was a very rural school heated by a heater in the room luckily I swerved it being a lot younger

We had big cast iron coal stoves in the classroom at one school.

And they left at 11 and half of them were illiterate when they did. Ah the good old times!

Er no! The National Curriculum started in the 1990s.