Captured by the Camera - "I caught it - It's mine"

I Caught it - It's mine

Treating children as individuals

Shortly after I posted the last post I discovered this cartoon which illustrates in many ways why Dartington was so successful (at least from my viewpoint as a pupil) under Bill Curry, helped by the low staff to pupil ratio. Everyone is different and has strengths and weaknesses. At Foxhole every child was treated as an individual and was allowed to do the things that gave them the assurance that there were at least some things they could do well. Forcing pupils to do things where they are never going to do well will only convince them that they are a failure. The door was always open and while I have never been good (in the formal assessment sense) at art or music I used to wander into the art room and did one or two paintings and sometimes I would sneak into an occupied music room and try and see if I could reproduce a popular tune on a piano keyboard.

Some children are god at taking exams and some find them so stressful that they do comparatively badly.

Dartington Hall School and thinking outside the Educational Box

“Anonymous” recently left a comment on my post "Escaping from the Box – The Dartington Experience" which has made me think what my stay at Dartington taught me.  “A” (for short) wrote:

This is an interesting account of the 'different' experiences of one British school child the 50's. Although Dartington must have provided a fantastic escape for many such as yourself, as with all schools, and particularly those of the 'progressive variety', I think you will also find many detractors, and knowing human beings, as I now do, after 57 years of life, I am certain that not all forms of 'bullying' would have been non-existent at any time in the school's life. What interests me most is what happened at, and to Dartington School in its final few years, which I believe probably indicates the experiment should never have been started in the first place?

Captured by the Camera - "Church Tower seen from the Car Park"

Church Tower from the Car Park

Time to get this blog moving again

www.clipartpanda.com

When you have reached the age of 77, as I have, the flesh and blood box in which you are trapped regularly reminds you that you have passed your “Best Before” date and are approaching your final “Sell By” date. You also are aware that there are so many things you would like to do and there is not enough time or energy left to do more than a few of them. If you start worrying about it you can get stressed and as a result even less gets done. The last thing I intend to do is end up as a couch potato watching the TV all day.

A bad spell over the last few months meant that this blog dried up – but the cheerful Spring weather has revitalized me. At least my plans to keep physically fit are going well. In the last 12 months I have lost nearly 15kg through eating sensibly - no formal diet – just a bigger variety of healthy foodstuffs, smaller portions, less between meal nibbles, and regular exercise.

I also need to keep my brain active and I am combining my walks with photography – using the activities of the Tring Camera Club as a framework for new ideas. So to compliment “Trapped by the Box” I plan a weekly post “Captured by the Camera”. These postings will act as a kind of metronome – as between each one I will try and include at least one posting related to CODIL, evolution, or brain research and another on the ways we, and society as a whole, are trapped in mental boxes of many different kinds.