INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

3 MAY 2000
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A reader wrote: It was good to read Kathy Mitchell's article Helping Children to See – and Appreciate – their World in the May issue of CYC-ONLINE. It says something to all of us who are somehow involved in bringing up young people. I was reminded of a "long-ago" book by Mark Terry.  Here, more relevant today than ever, is an extract:"

Awareness: Getting kids out there

Our senses were made for the environment, there is nothing else of which they can be aware. So the problem of environmental awareness is the general problem of sensory awareness. And if anyone wonders whether or not awareness is a problem, let him visit Los Angeles, or if he lives there, let him leave. 

Lack of awareness is the only explanation I can find for the Angelinos who can persist in assuring me that the smog is really not so bad on a day when I cannot help but see, smell, taste, and feel just how bad it really is. Granted they do sense the smog, but their major adaptation to it has been a lessening of sense awareness: their senses continually providing them with unpleasant reports, they have learned to ignore the information. And they have taken the imaginary environment of the media as a better (for it is surely more pleasant) indication of the way things really are: the smog alert-sign says 'MODERATE', the billboards all show blue sky, the travel ads are inviting people to come for the climate, and the news paper, telling how things really are, can still be read. 

A sad parallel exists in the life of most schoolrooms. Other than for the ability to read, no premium is given to acuteness of the senses. What counts is the written and spoken word. No special training is given to develop sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. These senses are considered largely irrelevant when they do not contribute to verbal communication. And the traditional classroom is usually dull enough to inhibit much sense exploration. Since the senses provide such irrelevant information, students learn to ignore them. 

The imaginary environment of the textbook, blackboard, bulletin board, overhead projector, and ditto sheet often presents all the important stimuli. Contact with real objects is at a minimum. This projected media environment is the center of attention in such classrooms, and. success is predicated upon familiarity with it. Verbal communication is the key. The senses provide, at best, unreliable help not approved by the curriculum directors. Through such typical practices, sensory capabilities are given no help and enough discouragement for anyone. The environment quite easily becomes the printed page, the earphone, the TV screen, the movie.

They all describe the real world, which we lose the ability to sense for ourselves.

Terry, M. (1971) Teaching for Survival. New York: Ballantine

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