Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 01/11/2007
Pumpkins, witches, ghouls and goblins…!
It’s that time of year again, and the kids’ thoughts are turning to all things creepy. For a few weeks now Halloween related junk… I mean art… has been accumulating in the house. Dangly spiders to hang from the ceiling, creepy ghosts, scary pumpkin cutouts, jack-o-lanterns… the list goes on.
Today was the last day before the mid-term break, and the twins went off to school in fancy dress – one as a devil (how appropriate) and the other as… a cowgirl. We suggested witches, goblins, vampires, ghosts and all the usual suspects, but she was adamant she wanted to be a cowgirl – so a cowgirl she became. Terrifying!
They also had to take a piece of exotic fruit to school. Instead of sweets and rubbish the principal had decided that yogurt with exotic fruit would be a healthier and much more educational option for their Halloween party. The children would likely get to taste something new and healthy, and would learn about the different fruits and where they are grown while they were at it. And all while enjoying the spirit of Halloween fun. It was an inspired idea.
When you make learning fun, it becomes transparent. When learning becomes transparent it becomes incredibly powerful. You’d be amazed how much children absorb when they don’t realise they’re being taught.
Of course this “activity” fell outside the formal curriculum – but judging by the way the children enthused about it when they came home it had a lot more impact than the stuff they’re taught by rote. It’s another stark illustration of how our nation’s primary schools – our educational bedrock – could be so much more effective.
We’re lucky that the principal in the girls’ school is progressive, open, and always willing to try new ideas that introduce the children to new things. Many primary school children aren’t so fortunate.
But I digress…. we were talking about Halloween.
The fictional little vampires running around trick or treating on Halloween may be fictional – but they’re a lot more like their legendery undead counterparts than you might realise. Okay, so they don’t wander the darkness searching for victims to satiate their lust for blood (at least most of them don’t), but children do exhibit other vampirical tendencies.
Instead of blood young children drain their parents’ energy. They don’t gorge on our lifeblood, but rather they feast on our lifeforce. Why else would they be so full of life at bed-time when we’re fit to drop? Vampires of course, don’t kill their victims, they turn them into vampire-like thralls – keeping them somewhere between life and death: a renewable resource that can be exploited at will. Compare and contrast the way that children cleverly don’t drain all the life out of their parents. Instead they leave them as barely cognitive zombies who will recover enough overnight to provide a fresh source of energy tomorrow. Is this ringing any bells?
Of course it’s not always that way. As children get older things change: their vampirical attentions get a new focus… the parental wallet!
Case in point, the girls have already started “ticking off” the stuff they want for Christmas in catalogues that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. The things they’re ticking this year are more expensive than last year’s stuff by an order of magnitude. It’s a worrying trend.
Looking forward, this financial vampirism scares me more than a real vampire ever could. I have cold sweats about mobile phone credit, keeping up with the latest trends, the cost of extracurricular clubs and activities…. Things are only going to get worse….
And of course better – because while we’ll have no money, at least we’ll have a bit more energy… I hope!
