Then may come the question of safety and tree-climbing, and how to
manage with the babies. Children generally know that tiny babies can
hold very tight, and have various ideas for the mother. How to keep the
baby from falling brings the idea of twisting in extra branches, which
is recognised as a cradle in the tree, and the children delight in this
as a meaning for "Rock-a-bye, baby, in the tree-top." The possibility of
tree-shelters comes in, and various experiments are made, sometimes in
miniature, sometimes in the garden. Out of this comes the discussion of
clothes. Animals' skins is an invariable suggestion, though all children
do not realise that what they call "fur" means skin.
Skin is provided, and much time is taken in experimenting to see if it
can be cut with bits of flint. How could the long-ago people fasten on
the skins, brings the answers "by thorns," "tie with narrow pieces," and
the children are pleased to see that their own leather belts are strips
or straps. Sometimes much time is taken up in cutting out "skins to
wear" from paper or cheap calico, the children working in pairs, one
kneeling down while the other fits on the calico to see where the head
and legs come. The skins are painted or chalked, and pictures are
consulted to see whether the chosen animals are striped or spotted.
It may be stated here that we are not very rigid about periods or
climates, and that our long-ago people are of a generalised type. Our
business is not to supply correct information on anthropological
questions, but to call forth thought and originality, to present
opportunities for closer observation than was ever evoked by observation
lessons, and for experiments full of meaning and full of zest. Naturally
we do not despise correct information, but these children are very young
and all this work is tentative. We are never dogmatic, it is all "Do you
think they might have ..." or "Well, I know what I should have done; I
should have ..." and the teacher's reply is usually "Suppose we try."
Children are apt of course to make startling remarks, but it is only the
teacher who is startled by: "Was all this before God's birthday?" "I
don't think God had learned to be very clever then." It is a curious
fact, but orthodox opinion has only twice in the course of many years
brought up Adam and Eve. Probably this is because we never talk about
the first man, but about how things were discovered. The first time the
question did come up Miss Payne was taking the subject, and she
suggested that Adam and Eve were never in this country, which disposed
of difficulties so well that I gave the same answer the only time I ever
had to deal with the question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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