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the form of stews topped with little
dumplings. Every bowl and dish I possessed, together with
spoons, were taken into School and some were borrowed from
neighbouring homes. In this way every child had a plateful of
hot dinner. Much enjoyed as it was such fun – not one dumpling
was left.
There is a saying that goes something like this, ‘What
I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I know and
understand’. These things have a deep truth so long as they
are linked together and this is something we tried to do in our
many activities in Ash School. In order to be effective,
education must be linked to the outside world. The things one
learns in school are not isolated facts, but are a means to an
end. Young children naturally do not look on it in this light;
they do not understand that and it is not until one reaches the classes
in the |
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upper school that one realises the value of
what one is learning in order to adapt oneself to everyday life
after school.
So inevitably many memories of these years are
linked with the activities of the school, which were based on,
of course, the academic subjects. Geography has always been my
favourite subject and this, I think, is one of the subjects that
can be used in many different ways in the school curriculum. It
can be bought into English, Mathematics, and into the Humanities
in all sorts of ways. I am sure many of you will remember the
exciting times we had preparing for our annual Geography Trips.
Our ideas of geography were not to make long lists of the
highest mountains, longest rivers and so on, but to find out how
people lived in other parts of the world. |