Tenniel Alice

Key to my reading – and it is only my reading – of Alice is the theme that runs through a lot of my thinking: exploring the models of childhood in literature.

Looking at Chris Jenks’  dichotomy:

“The Apollonian child, the heir to sunshine and light, the espouser of poetry and beauty…angelic, innocent and untainted…”(Jenks 1996:73)

“The child is Dionysian in as much as it loves pleasure, it celebrates self-gratification….”  (Jenks 1996:63)
Jenks C (1996) Childhood: Abingdon: Routledge

is Alice the barely reined-in Dionysian child, who, let loose in her dreams, finds her way home (to “dull reality”) by negotiating both models – in finding how to respond to the demands around her and stay sane – in other words, to grow up? Are we looking at some kind of spiritual quest for self-realisation?  We might object that Carroll did not intend this – but again perhaps looking at what an author intended in a  story made up just to while away an afternoon’s rowing is too fraught with difficulties. In any case, when Carroll is being didactic towards children – as in his Easter Letter - we know about it.

Of course the all-important commentary is the wonderful

Gardner M (ed)  (2000) The annotated Alice: the definitive edition. London: Penguin

There are  loads of other books, looking at Alice and Carroll biographically, from the point of view of psychoanalysts, logicians, mathematicians…  An interesting way of looking at Alice might be to consider her not in the context of Victorian literature (and Alice abounds with cross-references here) but to the folk-tale inheritance and to her influence in later children’s literature: there is something of Red Riding Hood in Alice, but her literary ‘daughters’ (in Oxford terms at least) include Lucy from the Narnian chronicles and (perhaps by extension) Lyra from Pullman’s His Dark Materials.   Is she also re-presented in the precocious Cordelia in Brideshead – or is the ’secret door’ from Alice completely different for Sebastian and Charles?

For scholarship’s sake, I suppose I ought also to attempt a filmography, since my presentation makes mention of the Disney and Burton versions, but I haven’t time, since there are lots of others, too – a silent one from 1903 which I linked to here from YouTube being the earliest I can find.

And here, for what it’s worth, is the powerpoint:

Alice Worcester summer school

It is interesting to observe that business is growing in the US and worldwide around graduating young children from their earliest educational experiences. One site  with the catchy but curious name of Rhyme University sells whole packages for gradation at affordable prices. The company’s website states that “we’ve been able to successfully grow from 121 customers in 1954 to over 20,000 schools worldwide.”

The “About Us” section has a telling story to set the tone about a child’s pride in a scrappy diploma, and notes that
“If early learning provided the keys to greater success later in life, then the transition from preschool and/or kindergarten should be marked with no less importance.”
Rhyme University’s deluxe package ($23.95) comprises a cap with tassel, a gown, a sash, a ring and a diploma.

While this site – Kindergarten lessons – seeks to minimize the ritual elements, this site is more specific about what graduation might mean and might entail:  suggesting that “[E] ach year of graduating from one grade to the next deserves a special celebration” and that this is “a time to honor their achievements, let them know they’ve done great work and have accomplished the goals of moving on to the next stage of life.”

And this leads me to the thought for the day: at what point is progression the same as graduation?

And is this idealized perfect landscape also the world in miniature, or the wild wood tamed – and hence is it Outside in children’s literature?

There is, of course, the embattled group syndrome, real Sherif intergroup stuff (this link is to a quick and easy overview) ,where EY people would somehow like to believe their work –our work, my work – is so specialised that no-ne dare set foot in the door without highly detailed understandings of child development and effective pedagogy . It’s true in one way. We do need –the research is at least clear on this – well-qualified people. I take this to mean people  with graduate attributes   ( for one table of attributes linked to employability see this fascinating article fromn BeJLT) who understand their job, who understand children; despite admiring his on-the-hoof work towards child-centred learning, we don’t want to replicate the experiences of Wilderspin.

EPPE is after all very clear:

High quality pre-schooling is related to better intellectual and social/behavioural development for
children.
Settings that have staff with higher qualifications have higher quality scores and their children make more progress.
Quality indicators include warm interactive relationships with children, having a trained teacher as manager and a goodproportion of trained teachers on the staff.
Where settings view educational and social development as complementary and equal in importance, children make better all round progress.
Effective pedagogy includes interaction traditionally associated with the term “teaching”, the provision of instructive
learning environments and ‘sustained shared thinking’ to extend children’s learning.

But there is another side to this: the idea of some school leaders and parents that “anyone” can teach in Early Years, the feeling that it is not a job that requires immense amounts of trust or expertise. It is bound to rankle.

The third point however, has to be where I point the finger at myself.

At what level does the teacher, or the teacher-trainer or (in my case the learning and development leader for a team of teacher-trainers [as in this epigram from A B Ramsay] need to recognise that the fine-tuning between the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 is just that? That’s not to say that there isn’t some poor practice “out there,” and Julie Fisher’s excellent new book, Moving on to Key Stage 1 (yes I did write an endorsement) is certainly written with a need in mind here, but when faced with the need to give guidance to teachers – or students – themselves faced with impossible demands, should we – I – be so quick to draw lines? Where do principles need to come in to play?
Perahps the answer lies not so much in the Pauline notion of “integrity, gravity and sound speech” as the idea of St Benedict; the teacher trainer may have principles but should also be aptus… ad lucrandas animas, skilled at winning souls, “qualified to win souls,” as this translation has it.

Qualified. I’m back to where I started.

But if that’s my aetiological myth, I felt close to it at Howl Night last night. Hearing wolves howl spontaneously as the twilight deepened was wonderful; managing to tune my voice into howling with a wolf – specifically this wolf – got me thinking about why our voices can be so alike. A sort of convergent evolution suggests itself – the need to communicate in similar terrains for similar tasks with similar groups – and this leads me to the big question I want to explore,one I’m always exploring really: what is this relationship founded on, and what are its characteristics?

It strikes me there are two elements that I can explore – two  interrelated issues I’ve already touched on in this post, but which I need to come back to: competition and symbiosis.

Do we fear and love the wolf because it competes – or competed at least – with us, especially when we moved to raising livestock which it took?   It might be argued that we developed, perhaps, a respect, an understanding of it – but at the same time a rivalry, even a fear that occasional confrontations will have done nothing to dispel.   Perhaps Steven Mithen’s fascinating book the Singing Neanderthals (an interesting critique is here)  might have some insight – I must have a look  back at this.   I also wonder whether we fear and love the wolf because we have lived close to it, tamed and shaped it, and the pure wolf seems somehow to remind of this process? Is the former what gives us the werewolf, the predatory danger, and the latter gives us the named and befriended ambassadors we met and howled with last night?

Our thanks have to go to Alhajie, Brendan, Jenny, Jo and Butch – not to mention Josh and Fatou and Mustapha and all the others – at the Gunjur Project who took us in and looked after us and kept us busy while airlines and politicians panicked around us. We, of course, did not panic at all.

It was interesting to meet new people on this trip. Interesting, for example, to meet the wonderful Fatou who runs Mariamma Mae nursery, a little gem of pre-school provision tucked in behind Gunjur Lower Basic school. More later, perhaps, on this. Life in Gambia College was also good – the hospitality of the staff was, as ever, very welcome. It was also very good to meet some of the other people in College, from more senior University officers through to (I couldn’t say “down to”) VSO workers such as Rachel, whose blog is linked here.

The story of Tom Tit Tot is an interesting one partly because it has such a close cognate in Grimm – the now better-known Rumplestitskin -  but also because (as I’ve noted before) the motif of the pagan wood. Tom Tit Tot is ‘the black thing,’ ‘the old thing,’ a tail-twirling ‘impet,’ a night-visitor and the girl’s defeat of him allows her security, safe from the murderous intent of the court and the wood.

Is his occupation – and her dilemma – part of the conundrum as to what Tom Tit Tot is? Or is this demonic night-creature always going to be her way out – why else does he do her so many good turns, give her so many chances to redeem her pledge?  Defeat of the stressful worry of a task too big for you is possible with patience, cunning and a bit of luck.

And maybe now I’ve finished my marking, I can see Tom Tit Tot in this light. I certainly have some sympathy for the girl.

Let them say it themselves, then – although the emphases and editing are entirely mine.

Enhancing children’s development is skilful work, and practitioners need training and professional support to do it well, including making decisions about children’s individual needs and the ways to ‘personalise’ their learning.

Talking about feelings has beneficial effects. Although this has been a self-evident truth for decades, new research on ‘Social and emotional aspects of learning’ for children shows how it benefits learners of all ages, even children under four.

Formative assessment will lie at the heart of providing a supporting and stimulating environment for every child. This may require professional development for practitioners and liaison with individuals and agencies outside the setting.

The art of early years practice is getting the balance right between guided and self initiated learning, either in homes or in settings.

Skillful work. Art. Balance.

The excitement of helping a child melt a handprint into frost.

Knowing when to swap the sand for cooked spaghetti, or to put a plastic penguin in a tub of water in the freezer for tomorrow.

And from the point of view of ‘health promotiong activities?’

Is the In Depth section for EYFS Health and Well Being really sufficient?

However I have to usher in a new year of postings with this link to the EYFS literature review that Maria Evangelou and colleagues from OUDES and Mary Wild and Georgina Glenny from the Westminster Institute have worked on together.

Here’s the best new year picture so far, anyway.