topic talk

Went to Son's 'topic talk' at school today (each term the teachers outline what the children will be learning). I was suddenly struck by how much more interesting school is these days. In art, for example, Son will be learning about Kandinsky, and the relationship between mark-making and emotions (!). When I was his age (7), I think art involved making Santa Claus waste paper bins out of old baby milk tins. So I sat there being flabbergasted with the standard of education he's having. Other parents, however, seemed more concerned about the fact that the children are not being forced to do pages and pages of neat handwriting or learn times tables by rote (I thought, 'who gives a monkeys about neat handwriting or times tables?' but I didn't say anything). One very nice, but evidently quite concerned mother said: "Well, surely at some point they will have to learn what eight nines are?" I said I still didn't know what eight nines are (perhaps that's what's been holding me back all these years?) and the teacher showed me a trick to work out your nine times table on your fingers - won't bore you with it here. Ooh, you learn something new every day, don't you?

Almost all the children at the school have high-achieving parents (UN or DFID or similar if they are expat, and really really rich if they are Nepali), so there are quite a lot of pushy middle class parents, as well as the occasional child of enlisted filth like us. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for the teachers here (not often because they have great holidays - another long weekend this weekend and we've only been back at school a week!), because whilst they have motivated kids and parents and small class sizes, they do also have to contend with, well, pushy middle-class parents (of which I am one, of course, albeit one who still doesn't know her times tables).

Maybe later in life, when Son is approaching forty and looking at what he has yet to achieve on the 'things to do before forty' checklist, he'll think: 'Oh, but I could have done so much more with my life, if only I had had neat handwriting and known my nine times table properly.'

It's the Twins' topic talk next week. I wonder if anyone will lament that they are not getting enough Play Dough time or alphabet chanting?

I say bring back the dunce's hat and the birch and make them all write with quills!