Quite pissed off about this, am I being daft?

[FlightAttendant]

Today ds1 went abck to school and was really looking forward to it.

I went to get him at 3.15 and he was absolutely busting to tell me about the 'thing' that had landed in the woodland bit of the playground.

I followed him and a large crowd of grown ups and children was standing around this thing, which looked to me very much like a huge air conditioning unit half buried in the ground, with a slightly blackened tree next to it.

I have to admit I immediately thought it was a kind of set up, for fun - there was stripey tape all round it and nobody allowed to touch.

Ds told me that it had apparently 'crashed' last night, and was from a satellite or spaceship or similar and it even had the voltage written on it!

He loves this kind of thing so was utterly serious and really quite blown away by the idea. They had spent all day finding out about it and someone from the BBC had apparently come and interviewed a witness, with a microphone but no camera.

There is nothing on the BBC website. The newsletter just arrived and there is a large paragraph about it - 'We hope the children enjoyed the 'space mystery' today, our project this term is all about space' etc etc...

I didn't know what to do, so stupidly, probably, I told ds it wasn't actually from a spaceship, and he started to cry

I mean is this just like the Father Christmas thing we do with them, or is it actually rather cruel of them to lie about something so potentially thrilling - I have probably done the wrong thing but he would have found out later anyway no doubt and been MORE upset.

He is insisting the newsletter is wrong and is very cross and fed up.

Can anyone talk me down, I really don't need another confrontation with the HT...I am just so sad for him.

I'm sure you are fine Flight-you are the one that knows your DC best. All DCs are different which is why I wouldn't have done it in the first place.

It depends on the fantasy and magic.
this wasnt presented as fantasy and magic which is the problem it was presented as fact. And it was scientrifically incorrect.

I would have burst my ds' bubble exactly like that to avoid his misconceptions at an older age. It is this impressionable age where these incorrect facts presented as correct cause so much lasting damaging. They get remembered and then the student cant lose them when the come to study ks3/ks4 and therefore struggling to grasp the correct verion of events.

oh lots of sp.

It all depends on personality. My mother would have 'burst the bubble' but my father wouldn't-I can't say that either would have bothered me.

Thanks for the link sararararara. I'd love to do it but my class have SLD/ severe ASD so it just wouldn't work. I will hope that DS's school does it

mrz - no we don't fully embrace the approach either. We have a Primary Learning Network in our area and staff have been involved in action centred research, so our approach does vary from Dorothy's original blueprint. I'm not that experienced with it - been doing it for 3 years - but am very lucky to work in brand new school where everyone is constantly reflecting on our practice. It works very well for us, although I would never argue that MoE is the be all and end all. There are plenty of other approaches that achieve similar results and it is only a section of our work.

One thing I find interesting ios that so many people are so concerned that their children would be upset to fnd out that the situation was a 'what if' - and i think there are elements of the 'mantle pof the expert' role play, if the children were 'interviewed etc, and had to work out what was going on - surely the really questionable thing would have been if children had become hysteical with fear at the possibility of something falling from the sky. There seem to be no reports of this...and the concern is over them finding it NOT real than fearing it to be real....

Chaos: Drama-based techniques such as TMoTHE are not based on 'magic' and 'fantasy'. there are things in between 'fact' and 'magic and fantasy' - which are about controlled, quite structured hypotheticl challenges, which engage the imagination and senses, but which lead to discoveries and learning of facts. We don't really have details of the learning areas that the OP's school were exploring - I doubt it as to teach them factually incorrect info about UFOs.

This has reminded me of my dad telling my siblings and me about a car that would deliberately crash into other cars and we had to look out for it and everytime we saw a car with a dint in it we accused the dastardly car, this went on for a number of years everytime we visited my grandma. He never mentioned a driver and I always imagined a 'herbie' style car. I mentioned this to my mum a couple of years ago and she told me he had made it up, I was shocked it wasn't true and after getting over feeling stupid (I'm 39), I wished she hadn't told me, I wasn't mad at dad and we had great fun at the time, but I really wanted it to be true. It could have been true couldn't it?

Blu, please could I direct you to my post at 3.59pm on Weds:

'Another mum said her 9yo daughter had been distraught, and cried a lot last night so they had had no option but to tell her it was fake - she was convinced something similar could fall on their house.

There were several other children in yr 5 who also were in tears about it, according to this mum.'

Sorry - well hidden in the thread!!

Wandaa, I am laughing out loud That is hilarious.

By WhereChaosTheoryRules Thu 07-Jan-10 17:44:56
And it was scientrifically incorrect.

What actually was scientifically incorrect?

It is all down to personality. If I went into a class of 5yr olds and mimed that I was carrying a heavy parcel and wanted to hand it to someone I could rely on someone taking it from me. If I then said 'that was brilliant James, I really thought you had one-who else would like to pretend to hold the parcel?' then several more would have a go. However there would be a few who look as if I was mad and couldn't get over the fact there was no parcel. OP is the latter so I wouldn't worry about your way of handling it.
I would have been inclined to say 'wow, wasn't the school clever? Which bit really fooled you?'or similar. If you have a DC who thinks that it might fall on the house then you need to handle it differently. The parent is one to really know the DC.
I have to say that WhereChaosTheoryRules' way was better, but I think it was nice that the school tried to rise beyond the boring!

Wandaaaa- it is true.

I get your point of view. I'd rather let children learn that there is mystery and wonderment to be had out of reality (I mean, nature is brimming with it), than to let them grow up believing in a load of crap, and then feeling that all the mystery and wonderment has gone out of life when they learn it is a load of crap. I don't believe in lying to kids. There's no good reason to.

Mrz
OP : looked to me very much like a huge air conditioning unit half buried in the ground, with a slightly blackened tree next to it.

The state of the object that had come down. Had it come from space with would had suffered significant damage and would have been almost unrecognisable due to the nature of the materials of the ojbect describe and the high temperature that it would have encountered on re-entory to the earth's atmosphere.

Also had it come from space the force at which it had impacted on the ground would have created a significant crateor (sp) and not just a blackened tree. Even a small metorite can create a significant crator due to the force of impact.

Blu- i am not disputnig the fact that there is room for role play, i am concerned at the fact that this wasnt completely thought out and even a 5 year old with and interesting in space would have told them that they had had significant flaws in the set up that were scientifically incorrect. No maybe the school had chosen to have this inaccuracey to hint at the siutation being "set-up"/"roleplay" but this concerns me as i had seen the damage it does to the learning of children later on when they are unable to remove this information from their understanding, when they are trying to incorporate higher level information. I agree there is value in useing roleplay as a tool in teaching and have used it myself but i am concern at the incorporations of "facts" that are actually falicies and can be very damaging to a childs development later.

I agree Kneedeep (haven't seen you for a while on here, hope things are going well!)

I recall vividly us making our own 'magic' as children. My sister made up a game where we went down a secret hatch under a tree on the way to town...it led us into a land of robots and other weird and wonderful stuff. I was totally, totally in love with that game - she made it feel so real, though we knew it was a story BECAUSE we couldn't actually open the 'hatch', we just pretended to - so it was obvious. I used to beg her to carry on that one, every time we went out.

This leads me to question whether perhaps the school has entirely missed the point. By creating the 'factual evidence' surrounding this scenario, they have in essence spoilt it. They have talen away the elements which are necessary to inform children on a basic level that it is false, and therefore safe.

I was only able to fling myself willingly into the suspension of disbelief with my sister's game because I knew without any doubt whatsoever that it was all made up.

I think this might actually be the crux of the issue...has anyone done a PHD on this subject? It's almost like attachment theory - kids need to understand their parents are always available (or alternative scenario, reality is available) in order to be able happily to abandon them to explore further into the wider world (or into the story in our case)

What does everyone make of that?

Its a very intersting point FA. If noone has done a phd on it maybe they should.

plus, when we all played in the fields and had 'magic' trees and such, it was never because the tree was actually specially marked out - it was just in our imaginations. We didn't need to paint the letters 'NASA' down the trunk to pretend it was a rocket.

We certainly didn't have real light sabres or indeed any metal hardware at all in order to christen (and practically live in the branches of) our 'millenium falcon'.

I feel that making a mocked up crash landing is a parody of a child's imaginary development. It's once more teachers trying to get their hand in where it isn't required.

I am sure they mean well but really, a child's imagination is none of their business, and not their domain - and not to be f*cked with, tbh.

Apologies for any offence caused to teachers by that swinging statement.

I got a bit carried away. Most of you are great. It's the concept that's misdirected.

Well, it has been v interesting to hear the negative reactions to this excercise, and constructively illuminating - I think it does emphasise the fact that there is a skilled methodology in all teaching methods, which needs to be properly applied. Skilled drama practitioners take years to learn their repertoire, and there is SO little INSET and professional development time for teachers now - it's very hard to offer INSET along with external arts projects and for the schools to find the time to fit it in.

It sounds like bloody good fun to me. I hope when my dd's 7 her school do something simalar and I also hope that if they do the experience isn't ruined for her by one of her classmates telling them all it isn't real because his mummy said so.

Things like this are exactly what childhood should be about. It's completly mean to treat children like adults, they need fantasy to develop their imagination let them believe in the tooth fairy and fallen satalites, it's fun!

Op you should have just let him enjoy it.

Why not just give the teacher some constructive feedback-in a friendly manner? I get the impression that it was a new thing for them and there are things they can learn from it.

yes...indeed, Blu. That leads me to think they may have been better advised not to attempt it themselves but rather to have brought in some outside agency, witht he relevant practise in such things.

I guess they were just trying a bit too hard.

Worszel he would have been told by the other kids the next morning...nearly all of them had figured it out for theselves.

FlightAttendant, agree entirely
"I think this might actually be the crux of the issue...has anyone done a PHD on this subject? It's almost like attachment theory - kids need to understand their parents are always available (or alternative scenario, reality is available) in order to be able happily to abandon them to explore further into the wider world (or into the story in our case)"

kids need to start from a position of safety, security and certainty, after that they can let their imagination run wild, and are far better at that than adults are, since adults lose this ability as they grow older.

Pulling the rug out from under their feet is cruel.

You and coldtits described very well how your DC could not believe that their teachers could possibly be lying to them. Coldtits even had to physically go to the school to get the teacher to explain to her DS that it was a lie, because he believed his teacher more than his mother. When the teachers carry out tricks like this, they remove the blanket of comfort and leave the child confused and disoriented, tricked by the people that they are looking to for certainty and truth.

We all agree that imagination is crucial. It seems to me that the "mantle of the expert" is a much better way of meeting this need, since it avoids the frightening, shocking and deceitful aspects of some of the other scenarios that have been described in the thread.