My
grandson was tatting away on his play station the other day, and my
grand-daughter was using her mobile phone, and it struck me how different
the skills which they need today are from those which I needed as
a child, or those needed by a child a hundred years ago, or a thousand
years ago.
I
was fourteen before we had a television, and when I was little we
had nothing electronic with buttons, joysticks or mice (or is the
electronic plural mouses?) to play with. We had a telephone; we were
connected by a live operator and our number was increased to three
digits from two as the number of people with phones in the locality
expanded. No Broadband then.
Even
the most fundamental things have changed. In getting dressed in the
morning, a child might have the odd button to do up today, but Velcro
and zips make things easier, and materials stretch and resume their
shape once they have been put on.
A
hundred years ago there would have been a lot of buttons to do up
(perhaps still using a buttonhook?), bootlaces to tie, bows for girls
and collar-studs for posh boys. Materials were less forgiving; I read
the other day that a well-knitted gansey should have been tight enough
to hurt the ears as it was put on. As for the Saxon child of a thousand
years ago, I am not clear how s/he would have been dressed, but I
guess that they would have fixed clothes with knotted belts and toggles.
And
what about getting a drink? The child today needs a variety of technical
skills, opening little boxes of juice without accidentally squirting
the contents out of the straw, for example, or learning how to use
those funny tops on water bottles, or opening ring-pull cans. A hundred
years ago, the main skill was probably using the pump in the back
yard to draw water from the well. A thousand years ago, the Saxon
child would perhaps have had to collect water in a leather bucket
or a skin from a nearby stream.
Then
there’s schooling. The Saxon child probably did not read nor
attend any organised educational activities, learning from his/her
parents the traditional skills needed to play a role as an adult in
the community. The child of a hundred years ago would have been be
expected to go to school and was taught tables and grammar by rote,
using slates to write on, and being beaten if naughty or failing to
pay attention. Today, the pattern of learning has changed completely,
with a greater emphasis on motivating children to want to learn and
an enormous variety of teaching materials.
Social
skills have also changed dramatically. The Saxon child would have
known the other couple of hundred people in the village pretty well,
but would hardly ever have met outsiders unless a noble, a pedlar
or a raiding party called. (1004 was the year that Swein descended
on Norwich and burnt the burgh down, but was fought off in the end
by Ulfcytel and his men after some hard “hand-play” which
resulted in many deaths.)
A
hundred years ago, a town child would have known the streets in their
own neighbourhood, and would perhaps have visited the local town centre
occasionally for shopping or for special holiday events. S/he would
have been more aware of the outside world, and taught about the pink
bits on the map. Today’s child may not know a lot of the immediate
neighbours, but may communicate with people the other side of the
world by email, text messaging or phone.
Think
about it. Virtually everything a child today needs to learn has changed
compared with his/her counterparts of a hundred or a thousand years
ago. The difference is phenomenal.
In
particular, nearly all the things a child does today are dependent
upon complex co-operation with other people - using things which others
have manufactured, or communicating through systems which others maintain,
or travelling in accordance with codes of road use and international
laws. The Anglo-Saxon child needed none of these, and the village
could have been virtually self-sufficient.
Yet
some things remain unchanged. Children still need to be loved and
cared for. They still want cuddles. They still may have tantrums.
They can still be naughty and wilful. Although we may be physically
bigger as a species now than a few hundred years back, we do not seem
to have evolved emotionally since the start of recorded history. Humans
can still be as brutal, caring, hateful, sympathetic, selfish, self-sacrificial,
depressed, happy, suicidal or fulfilled as they ever were.
However
the skills we need may change, we will still need to apply ourselves
to valuing the good over the evil, setting standards, working for
peace, caring for the vulnerable and bringing up our children. Technical
changes may build on past achievements, but we have to learn how to
conduct ourselves all over again in every succeeding generation. If
our children and grandchildren are to succeed, they will need all
the skills of modern society, but they will also need the best of
the values which have underpinned family life for millions of years.
