Easter Sunday. Chocolate eggs will have been given out all over the place. There are three sitting in my kitchen, for the three youngest grandchildren. The oldest of those is really too old now to be expecting Easter eggs but I overheard him asking his mother what kind of egg she was getting for him. So I’ve set a new rule: anyone over 21 is too old for a chocolate egg. He’s about to be 20, so maybe this will be his last egg!
We continue to have mostly dry weather. Today is sunny but cold, warm in the sunshine in sheltered spots but with a bitter cold wind. We’ve had some rain but not enough for the mud puddles to re-establish themselves on the bridle paths where I run. One of the neighbours is sitting in the garden in the sunshine, wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown and wearing a safari-style sunhat, one of those with a wide brim and a piece hanging down the back to protect your neck. A curious choice of clothing!
Here is a new bit of vocabulary, new to me anyway: the “manosphere” as in:
“Several women told the Observer their partners had been sucked into the manosphere - the name given to parts of the internet that circulate misogynist content – or consumed far-right material online.”
And teachers are reportedly noting more violent attitudes and language towards girls and even towards female members of staff from boys at school. We used to think that teaching boys and girls together would go some way towards eradicating such attitudes but any good influence from co-education seems to be contradicted by what boys see online and on social networks. Somehow we need to educate both boys and girls to be more tolerant and kind to each other. And tomstand up for themselves and for what is right.
Eva Wiseman was writing about education and what schools should be for in today’s Guardian. One of the friends she spoke to told her:
“They should learn about their bodies and how to communicate pain. They should learn how to feed themselves, to cook, to grow food. They should learn history and art and, instead of maths, how to understand money and budgets.”
All true but we do need to teach mathematics and the sciences. Even though, as Phil commented in conversation with the younger members of the family the other day, Pythagorus’ theorem (the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) of a right angle triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides) has never actually been of much practical use to him. But if we don’t teach maths and sciences, introducing each new cohort into the ideas, where will the great mathematicians and scientists of the future come from?
Eve Wiseman’s friend’s daughter is refusing to go to school. The friend told Eva Wiseman that the thing she really grieves, with her daughter staying home, is not that they might fail their exams or miss the chance to learn a language, but, the chance to discover what they really love and, she said, to “Learn how to live.” If you are not introduced to new ideas, how do you find out that might interest you. Education isn’t just for getting a qualification.
Apparently the terms used for refusal to go to school is now “emotionally based school non-attendance”. When one of our granddaughters went through it, they called it “school refusal’, without reference to emotion. Eva Wiseman comments that it used to be called “truancy”, which to my mind suggests something different. “Playing truant”, or “wagging* as it is sometimes called, implies going and doing something else instead of going to school, a positive choice: going on an adventure with friends, going train-spotting or simply meeting a bunch of friend on the recreation ground (the rec), as parks were called in my childhood. Just plain refusing to go to school and staying in your bedroom is something else again, a modern affliction, exacerbated it seems by the covid lockdown. I don’t think there is an easy answer to the problem.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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