To raise an eyebrow at dd's nursery?

[snickersnack]

It's International Day at nursery next month. Lots of dancing, food and dressing up. Each room is given a country to learn about and "celebrate". DD's room has been given Zimbabwe. She's 3. What do you expect they may be learning?

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The 3 and 4 year old pre-schoolers were taken to a Chinese Restaurant for Chinese New Year at dd's nursery - fab. Didn't even have to pay extra for it. They had such a good time.

Wild animals ?

Knowledge and understanding of the world - all of course at a very simple and easy level.

What would you rather they did? Sat on their arses and let the kids do the same thing day in day out? It sounds like good fun and of course she will be learning.

y agree. Sounds great to me.
Why not do stuff as early as possible? I bet they are doing age appropriate stuff like simple songs, looking at pictures, perhaps dressing up, maybe tasting nice food. As for learning, I guess she is learning to try out new things, experiment and have fun
D

Although it is a pity she has been given the Zimbabwe room given their current problems with food shortage etc

are you concerned because your dds class got zimbabwe in particular or about international day altogether? if its just because of the country i wouldnt worry, i think it would probably be about safari type animals, not all dressing up as mugabe!

I'm all for giving kids an awareness of their world - and even some political things - at a young age. But how to explain Zimbabwe to preschoolers? Especially at the moment.

Seems weird choice of country. If you want to "do" Africa, couldn't one pick a country on a more even keel?

Not kidding - Zimbabwe. I did a double take and then had to check on wikipedia in case I'd been mistaken about which country Robert Mugabe was running into the ground.

So their going to learn about destructive murdering dictatorships then?

Maybe they'll listen to some music from Zimbabwe, have some food from Zimbabwe, learn hallo/goodbye in a Zimbabwean language (not sure what it would be, sorry) look at pictures of children their age in Zimbabwe doing things they'll recoginise, if they're lucky maybe a visitor from Zimbabwe might come and do art/craft/music....lots of possibilities!
And extra gold stars to your nursery for NOT doing 'Africa'

Oh no, don't misunderstand me - I love International Day, it's great fun, everyone has a ball and of course they learn stuff. All great - am thrilled they do different stuff. It was the choice of country I was querying...out of 192 countries (or UN members) they chose Zimbabwe. That was what made me raise an eyebrow...

How many rooms has this nursery gt for them to end up choosing Zimbabwe? Did they run out of countries or something?

Zimbabwe?

really?

is there an Iraq, Aghanistan or Darfur too.

I think the concept is fabulous but zimbabwe?

they're obviously

Lordy, so they must have 192 rooms. That's quite big for a nursery .

Maybe they have a member of staff who has links with Zimbabwe and can give information about songs, food etc without it just coming from a book? Or a pupil from Zimbabwe? I don't see the problem personally. The whole country isn't devoid of history and culture just because the current regime is so offensive. You wouldn't expect to teach kids about George Bush's atrocities if they were doing the USA.

China has a few issues aswell but it is a country often chosen for a theme .

Maybe there is a member of staff / helper who has special links with Zimbabwe and is going to help organise it? If not, it does seem a pretty strange choice in the current climate.

Yes it may have plenty of perfectly upstanding culture and history, but they can hardly wipe the current goings on under the carpet. I know the kids are only 3 but wouldn't it be downright wierd for them to be celebrating some false shiny-happy image when people are actually being tortured and murdered there as we speak.

so because of what is going on in Zimbabwe at the moment children should not learn about the country itself?

It's quite possible they have a member of staff from Zimbabwe who can teach them language/food/dance etc.

Just because of what Robert Mugabi stands for doesn't mean the rest of the people, the good, innocent people of Zimbabwe should be written off as well.

Well not in his own country he isn't HedgeWitch! My feeling is that there is more to a country than its dictator. You can separate the country from Mugabe - in fact if you don't, then he really has won. The people I know who live there want to carry on living and fight the oppression.