Toy guns promote learning?

Dec 29, 2007

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Toy weapons ‘help boys to learn’
Boys in nursery schools should not be discouraged from playing with toy guns and other weapons, the government says.

bbc

I find this a difficult one. I suspect that the guidance is actually along the lines of trying to not have teachers forever saying “no, don’t do that” to little boys, rather than what they appear to be saying, which is “let boys play with guns”. And on that level I can understand it. At the same time, even though I played with guns and swords and so on as a child and haven’t grown up to be a homicidal maniac (yet) I don’t want my children playing with weapons. All of the games involve killing ppl (ours didn’t as children, but then we watched the A team, which involved ppl being blown up and getting up and walking away) or ppl getting hurt, and all too often in reality this involves a small child in tears.

We are having this problem with Small at the moment. He loves superheroes, Spiderman in particular, although Batman is coming through as well. Unfortunately when he plays these games, he gets carried away, and his friends end up getting hurt. It’s meant that the games have had to be banned from school (there have been several meetings with me and him to try to work through it, but he just can’t remember when he’s playing the game that it isn’t the baddie in front of him, it’s his friend and he gets carried away). I can see in other locations how this could end up with him disenchanted and uninvolved, but school has just redoubled their efforts to involve him in other pursuits and he’s doing fine.

So what do you all think? Should little boys be allowed to run amok with guns? (Or little girls for that matter, but the story is about little boys 😉 ) Should teachers get over themselves (mainly women, apparently this is all just part of the feminisation of education, *sigh* ) and get with the plan and smile as they are ‘shot’? Or do weapons have no place in places of learning?

(And yes, I’m still clearing and sorting. I’ve removed two boxes and three bags of videos from the cupboard in the living room, now I’m going to bring some of my books down from upstairs and then take the rest from the dining room upstairs, and then I can take the two sets of shelves out…right at the moment it looks like a bomb has hit though. I forgot to take before pictures, but I think I’ll take an in progress one right now…)

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Comments

7 responses to “Toy guns promote learning?”

HelenHaricot
29 December 2007
I don’t think you can completely avoid ‘killing’ games. after all, we have a castle and knights, the cousins got light sabers for Xmas etc etc. But I do feel uncomfortable about it. I am very middle class though…
And excellent news on the decluttering. Is there a house in the offing?
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Jax
29 December 2007
I think I feel a little more comfortable about little figures killing each other in the castle games than I do about Small leaping on his friends and making them cry.
No house specifically in the offing, but still on drive to make this one saleable by excavating crud!
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HelenHaricot
29 December 2007
yes, I guess I do too, as it seems a bit removed
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Gill
29 December 2007
Most little boys tend to make guns out of anything, IME, even if you ban them. (Lego, duplo, fingers..) But banning them makes the activity even more enticing, cos it becomes forbidden fruit, doesn’t it? I think it’s one of those things that needs accepting and ignoring as a natural phase that passes. Stressing out over it seems to make it worse.
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Joanna
29 December 2007
I subscribe to Mothering magazine (USA), and this article has always stuck in my head: http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/discipline/bang-bang.html
which could be summarised in the following quote from it:
“While adults disapprove, children are often doing the child’s work of play: experimenting with power and excitement, action and reaction, in a safe, make-believe world.”
Certainly the children shouldn’t “run amok” – boundaries and supervision are important – but I think it is a necessary part of growing up, especially for little boys. With two older brothers I probably did more than my fair share of ‘killing’ the enemy, while playing cowboys and indians, but I think I’m a gentle, peace-loving sort of person now, and what’s more, so are my brothers!!
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SallyM
30 December 2007
For me guns would be preferred since they involve distance, its the jumping on part that annoys me! That has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with typical boy behaviour, rolling round all over each other and play fighting. Ban guns and they will still play fight. Tried it with DS1. Gave up by the time it got to DS2! I help in school quite a bit now and guns don’t feature any nursery or school my kids have attended, only imaginary ones in the playground so no, I don’t think they should interfere with the kids free play as long as no-one is getting hurt and like I say, in that respect its not guns that are the problem!
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Alison
31 December 2007
I don’t know about it being typical boy behaviour, but apart from that, I agree with Sally – playing with guns isn’t the same issue as fighting.
We have a weapon cache in one corner of a bedroom – they don’t get played with very often, but they’re not untouched. We have rules about them only being ‘used’ on people who are playing the game, and about not actually hitting people with swords. There have been times when I’ve felt uncomfortable with toy guns, but as Ernest explained to me very patronisingly when he was about 3, they are made of plastic and they can’t really shoot bullets or hurt people.
I can’t remember what we were talking about the other day – some film or tv programme with lots of fighting in – might even have been the A-Team tbh as we’ve been watchign them recently – and my dad voiced some vague concern about our kids watching them, asking if they don’t just become desensitised to violence. C asked him if he thought our kids were violent? He had to admit, that no, they’re really not at all! My brother and I used to fight A LOT, but our lot don’t, and I have zero tolerance for it.
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