I have been teaching for a long time—I am now into my 40th year—and I have seen huge changes. Things got better for a long, long time, but I see the situation now going back to how it was when I first started.
We are finding that people are being very careful, as they have to be when there is a lack of opportunities, and children’s experiences are much more limited. When I first started teaching, schools made up for some of that. We took the children out as often as we could, and it was three to a seat on a bus. That was long before seat belts. If they were infants, it was four to a seat. We all got on one bus and away we went. Thank goodness, we have become much more safety conscious now, but that has a cost implication.
I have taught in lots of authorities, and I was really pleased when I came back to Glasgow to find that Glasgow City Council offers coaches free of charge if we are going to a council resource. That has allowed us to take the children out and about, but we are still limited. My children are faced with texts that talk about farms or the seaside and many of them have never experienced those things. Last year, one wee boy in primary 7 said to me, “Ms Clunie, what is the sea?” I said, “Oh, it’s a big bit of water,” and it meant nothing. I went straight upstairs and booked a bus, and we took the kids to Lunderston Bay. Those of you from down the water will know that that is the river, but for that child it was the sea, and that might be the only chance he has of seeing it.
Children watch TV and are computer savvy, and they are presented with this wonderful world but do not have real experience of it. Another reason why we opened our summer clubs was to take them and their parents to other places. It is really the parents who are taking the children—we take a back seat on those trips, because we want them to build good memories as a family and be able to say, “Do you remember when we went there?” That allows the children to cuddle a bunny rabbit, climb a mountain, throw stones into the Clyde or whatever it happens to be. They are missing out on those experiences but are expected to know about them when they are reading a text. It is very difficult for them to understand things that they have never experienced.
Fortunately, schools now have a little bit extra and can help out, but for a long time it was very difficult. I have never charged parents a thing in the schools that I have worked in, but we have been limited in what we have been able to do. That is where I think children are missing out.
I hope that that has answered some of your question.