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.

Shock
2
a. Something that jars the mind or emotions as if with a violent unexpected blow.

from
www.thefreedictionary.com/shock

This is closer to how I view shock.

I tend to concur on that last point Mrz.

...which must say something about my not being quite a big grown up girl yet, perhaps.

I wont mention any of our other days either!
You'd be running for the hills.
Mrz you can teach my dc anytime.

Dictionary definition of the words really not needed. I am aware of the words. However to me the word shocked does not, in general usegae, have to mean something scary and dreadful. It often just means "wow, that's not expected!"

I guess only mrz can know what she meant by the comment.

I just think it was unlikely to have eant scared, firghtened pr upset. No teacher would be commenting ont hat positively after all.

Do you see what you are doing though Kitty? All this talk of us as parents not being worldly or tough enough for your classes...

I wonder how much of that attitude does come across towards your children (I mean your pupils)

You sound just like my old teachers when you say things like that.

mrz, I would tell my DS, watch out for mrz, always expect the unexpected. Once he knew that, I expect it would be a lot of fun

I didn't mean it in an unfriendly way. Mrz said you'd hate to have dc in her class. You agreed. By saying I wouldn't mind Dc's in her class. I was just afirming that I agreed with her ideology. Nothing about being worldy or tough enough. You think one thing I don't agree. That's it. I understand why you don't like what the school are doing and you've been very eloquent getting your point across.
I'm am properly sorry if I have offended you. That was not my intention.

My DSs' school did something like this. One day, there was a large, decorated box in the playground. The children were all brought out to see it, and one layer of wrapping was removed. There was a rhyming 'clue' in it, and a map. Every few days, the box would mysteriously appear again, and this continued for a couple of weeks. The clues were the topic of conversation at the dinner table the whole time. It turned out to be the introduction to a topic on Kenya, and the last layer of the box was opened to reveal a guitar. At that moment, a paid story teller walked around the corner, picked up the guitar and sung a traditional Kenyan song. The children loved the topic, and my eldest DS still talks about it 18 months later. The box was the story tellers idea.

As the whole 'mystery' thing went on, the children worked out that it must be a teacher leaving the box. They were not remotely upset. However, if after the 'stage was set' I had just told them it was a stunt, I think they would have been very upset.

ChickensHaveFrozenNuggets, that one sounds like great fun.

I think the crashed spaceship one is a bit more unsettling. As long as the stunts are not too shocking, then they sound like great fun

Actually I am with Flight on this one. This (in my view) is a completely bizarre thing to do. There are many ways of making lessons interesting and I don't think Ofsted approved hoaxing is one of them.

Jesus the person who imagined this up as an educational project must seceretly desire to be a scriptwriter on Lost, or something.

My own daughter is now a cynical teenager but still talks about such a day (when she was around three)

I am nt. My children are nt. I do not micro manage my precious little darlings and am generally very supportive of their bog standard state primary school. I am not hysterical, I am not anti imagination, I am not a killjoy, I am not sucking up to Flight, I am not stuck in an educational timewarp and I hate loads and loads the current national curriculum. I sympathise with teachers and understand they have a difficult nigh on impossible job. But I don't think this, or other projects like it, is of any benefit to the children, infact I think it could be positively harmful to some. I too would be annoyed if the school pulled a stunt like this on its pupils and I have every right to say so on this thread without being accused of some sort of lunacy.

ChickensHave - that sounds fun. I think it is the involvement of police officers, local media etc that bothers me so much. There is such a thing as taking a joke too far.

It still doesnt account for the misinformation. yes get them to use their imagination but get it factually correct. This is why i am so frustrated my the misconceptions that persist despite trying to correct and advance they knowledge and education. Child in primary school are establishing the foundations on which further information and their education is built. To use incorrect information in the name of fun is harmful and damaging. put the twist on it correctly and the activity is worth while!

Oh and just for the record, my ds never tells his teacher when he is upset. he comes homes and is violent and agressive instead. he has been taught by nursery that it is not acceptible to express fear and upset. Needles to say we removed him from the nursery but the damage is lasting and school dont see the problem. Children often refuse to tell their teachers if they are upset because they dont want to look vaunerable in front of their mates. this happens even in reception and especially in boys. You might be lucky to experience a difference to this but them you must have been able to establish an environment of trust. Leading the children on in a hoax without an inkling that it is a hoax runs the risk of damaging that trust and also opens the door to the concept that lying is acceptible to prove a point. destroying basic morals in the name of a fun lesson IMO is destroying what is left of civilisation. Society needs to function with a certain level of trust and truthfulness. without it society cant function. these rules are supopsed to be learnt in childhood not destroyed there!

Sorry, didn't read the whole thread (or the OP ) properly. Missed the police/media involvement. I can see how that might upset a sensitive child (something my two can never be accused of! )

ChickensHaveFrozenNuggets I don't think there was any police involvement in the OP that point comes from a link I posted to a similar scenario

Honestly, if a child told me something like this had happened at school, I would believe it to be true. For the simple reason that I would find it even harder to believe that schools could deliberatively try to teach students something that is wrong, than to believe that by some freak coincidence something had really actually fallen out of the sky onto the school premises.
So I think I cannot be accused of having lost my childish sense of imagination.
I'm all for integrating and interactive teaching/learning methods. Role plays and make believe. Working with and through children's lively imagination to achieve enthusiasm and learning.
But what exercises such as the one described by OP indicate to me is mostly that some teachers have lost the ability to see the exciting, magical and imaginary potential of real things and events. So instead of working with the real, they begin to stage fake things. Instead of aliens landing, we had tadpoles in the classroom which we observed transforming into frogs. Now THAT was exciting!

I also think some healthy scepticism towards authorities is something children should learn. Not everything your teachers tell you is true. Exercises like this one can certainly teach that (though it is not their aim). However I think, for children who haven't yet learned that, this is perhaps not the best way of having to learn it.

Overall, I would really count myself lucky if my kids will have teachers at school who go out of their way to create interesting learning experiences for them, which I think is very laudable. But I also hope that this will happen in a manner that takes into consideration that some kids, at some ages, will believe what their teachers say in a literal way. Thus staging untrue things can be deeply disturbing to them and must be dealt with carefully. For instance, as someone mentioned earlier, nearly everything can be ok if it is introduced as a "what if". I do not think that children would be less enthusiastic about it - precisely BECAUSE they have a good, strong and lively imagination, they can wholly immerse themselves into the "what if" scenario.

So, yes, if you cannot find wonderment in simple, real things, then do go ahead and stage improbable, pretend things. But do it right please. BTW I am not implying that anyone present does it wrong. I like many of the ideas and activities that have been described here. Even the OP's scenario could have been done right; perhaps if introduced with the "what if" element.

Oh and I also think that maybe FA's DS would be very happy in mrz's class. I think mrz sounds exactly like the sort of teacher who would (perhaps intuitively) do these sort of things right. So whilst you perhaps disagree strongly in an abstract sense, I still think it is possible that when it comes down to real teaching, you would be a good match

By Meita: "some teachers have lost the ability to see the exciting, magical and imaginary potential of real things and events. So instead of working with the real, they begin to stage fake things. Instead of aliens landing, we had tadpoles in the classroom which we observed transforming into frogs. Now THAT was exciting!"

I totally agree with you.

"OFSTED loves these kind of activities"

Well there's the proof that they are worthless and should be discontinued.

LOL @ the mean mummy "spoiling" the child's "fun" by telling him the truth.

"Jesus the person who imagined this up as an educational project must seceretly desire to be a scriptwriter on Lost, or something."

I was thinking that too.

It's kind of tragic in a way. I have had professional dealings with "educationalists" who obviously wish they worked in the media and are constantly coming up with this kind of unoriginal bollocks and thinking it's really creative and wonderful.

And so many of these kinds of gimmicks end up instructing children to be "investigators" in some poxy mystery that was a lot more fun for the teacher to make up than it is for the kids to "solve".

You don't need to work that hard to get kids to use their imaginations. You know what would work better than spending hours making up a crap story about a microwave oven falling from the sky?

Telling them some true stuff about space and then leaving the damn room.

There is nothing more stifling of children's imaginations than adults trying to direct it.

Oh skidoodle you have just posted exactly what I think (posted far more articulately that I would have prob managed as well).

Space is fascination enough without any fabrication. Silly stunts like this are actually insulting to a child's imagination.

Fascinating, not fascination, obv. Told you I was inarticulate.

My then-Y4 stepdaughter turned up at school last year to find that all the metal objects in her classroom had disappeared. Then they found a teacher's stripped car upon which was sprayed the words, 'I'm coming!'

They had just read The Iron Giant so there was a firm fictional context from which the pupils deduced what was happening and predicted what would happen next. They investigated, they detected and they reported. All of that gorgeous straddling of fact and fiction, fantasy and reality was easily accomplished. All rather lovely.

My then-Y1 niece arrived at school last term to find the entrance blocked with police tape and emergency services stopping children from entering the school. There was a lot of crying. Alien invasion writing project. No clear fictional cues. Quite the opposite - as unpleasantly hyperreal as possible, in fact. Not lovely in the slightest.

I'm agin it.