Health and safety jobsworths
It hasn't taken Isaac long to make new friends at his new school.
A few weeks into the new term and he's already listing and discussing new names with relish and enthusiasm.
He has less interest in new lessons, however.
New subjects have little or no interest, though he has developed a fresh interest in science.
I was asking him why it headed his very short list of favourite subjects.
"That's easy, dad," said Isaac. "We use bunsen burners and carry out real experiments.
"At the old school the closest we ever came to a real experiment was watching the teacher set fire to something.
We were in the classroom, watching the teacher in the schoolyard."
The day after this conversation, it was reported nationally that fewer and fewer science lessons were actually going to contain real-life experiments.
Schools and local education authorities weren't willing to "take the risk" that someone might get hurt.
Presumably the health and safety jobsworths won't be happy until games are banned and football lessons consist of watching Match of the Day.
Will woodwork and metalwork be outlawed, will school cookery lessons be a thing of the past? Or have the penpushers already consigned them to the history books?
I was hopeless at science, but the chemistry lessons that do stick in my mind are the ones where we carried out experiments in class – all under the attentive and watchful gaze of my old Southmoor teachers.
Not once did I ever see anyone get hurt, and during my seven years at the school I didn't hear of anyone being injured in a science experiment.
I'm delighted that my son's interest in a valuable and important subject has been sparked by classroom experiments – and hope they continue for a long time to come.
Chaos in our house the other night. The reason? Our internet connection failed.
Only for an hour or two, but long enough to establish our household's increasing dependence on the web.
Gabriel was angry that he couldn't use the social networks he surfs for hours on end at night; Isaac was bored because he couldn't play his Xbox 360 online and my wife was frustrated that she couldn't get on to Amazon to order yet more books.
Admittedly, there was a more serious element to the problem – the boys couldn't access their online homework.
Made me think though about how central the internet has become to our lives.
It was quite nice for the hour or so that we were denied access. We watched the TV together and for a while, even talked.
Just like the old days!
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Weather for Sunderland
Thursday 24 May 2012
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