Children must learn to embrace risk, heads are told

Children are being robbed of an understanding of risk by a rights culture that turns people into victims so that they can claim compensation, the director-general of the CBI said yesterday. Sir Digby Jones said that Britain’s economic prosperity was threatened because of a failure to teach children about personal responsibility.
Instead, they were being raised to believe that risk did not exist because of an emphasis on rights and an excessive concern for health and safety.
Sir Digby was given a standing ovation by delegates after his address to the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers in Telford, Shropshire.

He told the audience: “We, and especially politicians and the media, are all taking part in something of a deceit because we are teaching the next generation that risk doesn’t exist.
“We are saying to them that they can have rights until they are coming out of their pores, but responsibility is for somebody else. We are giving everybody rights, but responsibility, taking charge of your own actions, taking charge of your children’s actions as a parent and helping teachers, we don’t seem to have got it.
“Don’t play conkers in the playground, you might get hurt. Don’t do backstroke in the swimming pool, you might bump into somebody. Don’t take kids canoeing on a Saturday, they might put you in the slammer. Yes Minister wasn’t a comedy, it was a training film.”
Britain had the world’s most successful economy and was ideally placed to take advantage of opportunities in the global market. But it would face strong competition in the future from China and India. “If we carry on telling people that they have no responsibilities, that risk doesn’t exist, I tell you China will have our lunch and India will have our dinner,” Sir Digby said.

“There are 1.2 billion risk-takers in China and 1 billion in India and 280 million in the United States. Every one of them knows what it means and how to exploit it, whereas we are trying to create a nation of victims because once you are a victim, you can blame somebody and when you blame people, you are entitled to compensation.”
Heads were having to run schools in an environment in which children emphasised their rights and parents were “almost egging you on to break the rules” so that they could claim compensation.
Sir Digby said that children had to learn how to compete at school through “exams you can fail” and sports days in which medals were awarded to the winners. Otherwise, they would be unprepared for economic competition.
“We have got to stop this as a society because we are so far ahead of Europe, America and Japan economically. We will meet and beat the challenge of the skilled economy, but it would be such a tragedy if we lost out in the big game because we educated people that they have no risk,” he said.

“When they leave school they are going to get the shock of their lifetime because out there in the big bad world risk exists every day. Unless we educate children about risk, get them to understand it, to embrace it and exploit it, then we will fail as a nation.”
David Hart, the association’s general secretary, backed Sir Digby over public attitudes to risk. He said: “We are in great danger of wrapping our children in cotton wool to such an extent that eventually they will be suffocated.”

Tony Halpin
3 May 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1595568,00.html

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