teaching Scout

Being a young mum with a young kid, reading Ewan McIntosh’s post on early years learning (he points to a report from the Scot Exec) I thought-THANK GOD! I was wondering if it was just me who thought that kids were sent to school too early? At the moment I am getting pressures from umpteen different people that my son isn’t in nursery yet – bearing in mind he just turned 3 in Febuary! The idea of him being sent off to school next year for ‘formal education’ isn’t exactly a happy thought. I completely think that we have to get more in line with the European system where kids go off for formal education nearer 6, 7 or even 8 years old.

The recent Lib Dem conference (here’s a fairly concise explanation) gave me hope where they seemed to be embracing early years learning with the ‘Active learning’ type approach. (I’m not an active Lib Dem fan, it just caught my attention). I just wish that societal pressures could be taken away from parents, where the majority of us have to ship our kids off to playgroup/nursery/school/ afterschool/breakfast clubs(!) in order to get the bread in. If we were offered a system which valued the fact that kids are kids and they have the rest of their lifes to grow up, I would be a lot happier. 

Sometimes I wonder what sort of can of worms the Tim Berners-Lee opened when he “created” the net. Here’s the situation: on my laptop, struggling through dissertation dilemma’s, when I think - I wonder if David Hargreaves has got a blog? (his booklet for Demos has shaped a large part of my work) Wonder what he’s saying? Google away and I’m sent to Demos. I have been there before, but didn’t realise that it also included a blog from the ThinkTank team. So I’m reading away, starting to get lost by clicking on loads of links when I end up here! Yes David Miliband has got a Myspace account!As Demos question in their blog: “A prescient and minutely detailed parody, or a genuine medium of grass roots communication?!  Impossible to tell… “

After looking at Milibands blog  – I think the answer is he’s nuts! “I’m too sexy” is the song he’s got on it ?!? Also the quote he’s got about Spock – huh?

 Funnily enough, when I googled “David Hargreaves Blog”, 5th on the list was David Gilmours post last year! The booklet that David refers to is great for looking into collaborative learning, and yes – I do think that Glow is one of the first examples of a lateral system (from what I’ve heard). Although the Networked Learning Communities in England has similiar principles – just not so ICT driven.