Our careful study and guided tour of Westminster Abbey, a tour that included chapels, rooms, walls, corners, and floors, was often supplemented by groups of children being guided by their own teachers intent to explore the monuments, tributes, windows, and caskets that are situated throughout the magnificent structure. Not that the children were ill-behaved, they were just in plenitude regardless of where we went. Such has been the case in the museums as well.
The groups are never large, 15-20 children at the most, and always dressed alike in smart uniforms with matching jackets and in most cases matching backpacks. Usually the classes are gender specific although not always. My first reaction was that these classes were from private, elite schools but a little examination reveals that all schools have a type of "private" appearance to them. The schools seem to have a veiled church-like system and a curriculum entrenched in British history and culture. In addition to the appearance of equality of the children in the group, the uniforms allow teachers to find the children quickly and the children to stay with each other. Obviously this is needed due to the crowds at each location and the non-stop energy of the children I saw. Far from perfect, they each seemed like little rockets ready to take off if given the opportunity!
At each museum or in this case the Abbey where I saw children, I secretly took a moment to be one of them by staying in the background and to listen to the teacher and to share in their experience. I tried not to be obtrusive (a little difficult being a bearded, bald Texan!) but, rather, to appear nonchalant in my spying. In every case I saw the the wiggly little students listening intently to the teacher. She would move fairly quickly through her discussion and would vary the moments of knowledge with pointed questions to the group. A child would raise his hand and respond and the teacher would affirm the child. This is the Socratic method and it still works. Questions such as what do Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Robert Browning have in common? Why are they immortalized in the Abbey?
In the art museum, the small group of students were learning about why the artist painted the scene with certain colors and with particular emphases. At the British Museum, children were seeing the Rosetta Stone and learning that there are different languages that exist around the world. Thinking a little more about our educational system and given that we in the United States do not have the thousand year history to discuss nor the richness of a city of over 13 million people, we still have much to offer. Yet it seems to me that after watching these children in a learning environment, their manners are generally more polite than our children. Granted that it is possible that I may be seeing the selected students allowed to attend.
And yet, no child that I saw interrupted another child talking nor interrupted an adult. When teachers are having to deal with impolite behavior, it detracts from the teaching. In addition, it causes a teacher to be hesitant to ask an open ended question, a question designed to encourage curiosity, a question to make children think, to explore an idea beyond the obvious, to spark the imagination, and to elicit a little academic competition. No, I do not believe London children have a better educational system, are better taught, nor are they more intelligent, but I do believe they somehow learn proper manners and polite behavior more thoroughly than do many of our children. Because of this quality, I have to wonder if they tend to embrace literature, the arts, science, and history earlier than do our children.
Knowledge, curiosity, and imagination are best fostered in an environment of mutual respect and a climate that allows for the freedom to think on another level. While we have many strengths including a robust teacher training program and schools that work hard to reach each student, my purpose is not to compare us to them, but rather to find ways to improve by drawing from other sources. We can learn from each other and we have, but perhaps we need to keep refining the idea that education is not to teach facts but rather to allow the facts to spark further possibilities. As Dr. Seuss says in Oh, The Places You Will Go!, "You'll be on your way up! You'll be seeing great sights! You'll join the high fliers who soar to high heights."
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