Two stories arrive on my BBC news ticker tape this morning. Both would be worth a comment; together they are a perfect exemplar of how, as Carol Aubrey says, “children are at the nexus of power relations, policy concerns and value investments of home and school.”

The first item is a simple and depressingly familiar tale of how Church is seen – can be seen – as a showcase, in which children may be cute and decorative, “mild, obedient, good as He,” but shouldn’t be disruptive of adult business. Church is for grown-ups, and the power discourse suggests that either the minister (or celebrant, or president, or whatever) is doing something so special, so magic, that s/he cannot lose concentration, or that the Bride and Groom are so caught up in some soupy myth about weddings couldn’t possibly want to start their married life with the sounds of – horror of horrors! – children. Of course, these are extremes, and it’s possible neither of them remotely reflect what happened in this case. I want to think about this in the context of childhood, of course – but it’s also worth linking the story with another from the same local news site. Inclusion is a hotter topic all of a sudden – not just becasue of the gay/women Bishops debate in the Cof E, but also because the debate on how we include children and other disruptive elements seems to be cropping up elsewhere. How does the Church – how does anyone – value These People? Perhaps it is about marginalised groups struggling to find a voice after all.

The second story grabs headlines but I feel more ambiguous about it, if only because the clumsy reportage doesn’t do justice to the idea. This link goes to the actual report, at least. It looks at children not so much older, still in the Early Years community (if we can talk about such a thing) being given Shakespeare to read. Nothing wrong, really, except the overcrowding of the EY curriculum, until we read that a spokesperson for National Association for the Teaching of English is reported as saying, “the earlier children are introduced to Shakespeare the better.”

Hmmm. And I thought educationalists were growing out of that argument.

Posted, without comment, as quotations from Margaret McMillan’s Education Through the Imagination (2nd ed, Allen and Unwin, 1923):

…”Just as we may meddle too much with a child’s play, we may meddle too much also with his day-dreaming… Doubtless, reverie is a part of the whole process of thinking.” p 18

It is only since the coming of the nursery school in the open that we have a really fair view of what has been done to many young children. Even some in the infant school suffer from various forms of repression. The big classroom, no more than the crowded home, lends itself to the need for motor expression. p34

Play gives comradeship, but also other things. It is, however, the great means towards clearance, or emergence, of clear mind images. Therefore even solitary play is sought. It is not a mere preparation for future tasks of the ordinary kind – fighting, buying, selling, housekeeping etc. Neither is it a mere outflow of exuberant energy. It is a forging on towards a goal beyond – a goal where new experiences as well as new memories will be possible. Its effect as a spiritualizing influence is almost certainly lost sight of. Yet this is its real goal. p179