I was presented with the task to
compare two types of schools recently.
The first school is situated
in Japan and have relatively high restrictions and safety measures
applied. The main goal of this type of schools is children safety.
The other one is in United Kingdom and the first thing that came to
mind when you read about it is the name of the song of the English
band The Sex Pistols “Anarchy in UK”.
Children there play outside even in the
winter or when it's raining, learn by doing things, grow plants and
play with fire. Another image that came to mind is the last word of
Mel Gibson character William Wallace in the film “Braveheart” -
“FREEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!”.
And the question is – what type of playground is the best for
children?
I personally favor second one, because
of importance of freedom and learning on your own experience and the
ability of taking risks. But I need to say about my own kinder garden
experience. Our garden was somewhere in the middle: we were mostly
inside, but sometime, when the weather was fine we were outside with
the guidance of one or two teachers. And one day we were playing
outside and a bunch of us went to the back side of the pavilion
(there were many pavilions in our kinder gardens).
In the back side
of the pavilion there was some kind of a room and in the middle of
that room there was a wooden box about a meter in height. So without
thinking long we started climbing on that box. I can assure you it
was quite fun t do. And when two of us climbed on the box the other
boy suddenly pushed me and I fell down and hit my head quite
seriously. Garden staff called my mother, she left job and took me to
the hospital. I do not remember how much stitches doctor put on this
wound by for some time I wore bandage on my head.
Some of you may ask me, why after this
accident do you still support the second one school? We need control
our children to prevent any harm that can be done to them. At this
point another citation come to my mind. It's from one of appearances
of stand up comedian John Carlin and it is about worshiping children.
One of the points he made was that we can't protect our children
forever and some day they will be facing the dangers of the world and
if they were grown in the green house they probably would have bigger
chances to fail.
Another thing about overprotective
playgrounds is that this kind of measures mostly characterize
parents. They definitely have issues with protecting their children
too much and at this point we do not talk about love to their
children, we are talking about neurotic need for control over their
children. When the love is too strong it can turn into weird
abomination which can cripple the life of the child.