This engaging and thought-provoking book challenges traditional educational theories and theories of child development and provides considerable food for thought for educators. It does this through analysis of key orthodoxies and insightful commentary of theoretical perspectives. The real strength of the book lies in its strong focus on the ways in which actual children develop and think. The work developed out of the author’s own postgraduate studies and there is a solid structure underpinning her empirical studies. Examples of children’s writing illustrate their capacity to think in ways which celebrated theorists might have thought unlikely or impossible.
Ashton’s studies of children’s writing about friendships, family relationships, peer group relationships and animals, and also the writings of a group of adults recalling their memories of school and home, are fascinating and often very moving. They reveal the challenges and traumas of childhood in sometimes alarming detail. For example:
My dad keeps making fun of me because I have a problem. He keeps calling me names because of it. My mum says he’s only joking, but I don’t think so. He keeps shouting at me. I go to see a specialist about the problem. She is called Dr. XX. I once told her my dad keeps making fun of me and when we left the Health Centre my mum told me that I was cheeky. I want my dad to be nicer than he is. I think all dads should be nice and shouldn’t pick on their children.
and
One time my sister had just got a new leather jacket and she was going to wear it for the roller-rink but my dad said ‘no’. So she went stamping upstairs but my dad followed her up. Then he started to hit her down the stairs. I cried because he was hitting her so hard.
The author concludes that the writings of both children and adults reveal deep concerns about relationships and security. She concludes that the children exceed the theoretical assertions of Piaget, who ‘denied them the ability to make moral judgements’ and were ‘far from the “innocent romantic” image argued for by Rousseau’.
Children’s understanding and interpretation of symbols and images is explored intelligently and well, so that as one reads one almost itches to get into the classroom and use some of Ashton’s strategies. For teachers developing religious education lessons, the section on the metaphorical properties of rocks and stones in religious thought will be of particular interest. Here we find examples of children thinking and writing at a level of insight which conventional theories might suggest was not possible. This is amply illustrated by a child who had asked for extra time to write:
It is true you can build things with stones and it is true that stones are strong and heavy. It is difficult to break a rock and you cannot take goodness out of Jesus. Jesus’ power is trying to get inside you and give you power. He is like a stone because he is strong. He is not strong in strength but he is strong in love and happiness. We should try finding Jesus’ love most of all and if we do we have found Jesus himself. What people should try to find in themselves in their lives is the joy they might never have had if it hadn’t been for God and Jesus.
The child had written this spontaneously and emphasised that she had ‘just thought it out’ for herself. It is interesting, given the depth of the child’s thinking, that Ashton began the lesson with the traditional fairy story The Three Little Pigs, which prompted initial discussions about stones as building materials, before leading into the imagery of stones in Biblical text. It is through examples such as this that the reader develops confidence in the author as a practitioner as well as a researcher.
Elizabeth Ashton’s book is founded in the reality of childhood and she neatly sums up her perspective on education when she writes, ‘To be effective, the definition must be grounded in the lives of real children, rather than visions of childhood which emanate from adult minds which are remote from it’ (28). She concludes that there has been a gradual erosion of values such as ‘respect’ and ‘search for truth’ but that her analysis of 10-year-olds’ writing showed that children could focus on such values and ‘responded readily to metaphors and symbols which offered them expression’ (159).
The book is a refreshing affirmation of what those, like me, who regularly work in primary schools and engage children in creative activities already know: children are generally capable of much deeper thought and reflection than some educational theorists have given them credit for. They have the ability to think in the abstract and draw upon metaphor and symbols as they interpret their experiences and develop their understanding of the world around them. The fact that the book is so strongly linked to classroom practice while being underpinned by established and original research strengthens the arguments and promotes the kind of reflection about good primary practice which we should all engage in. The book will appeal to educators, including trainee teachers and researchers, who wish to promote discussion about the nature of childhood and children’s potential for thought. The opening chapters alone are worthy of being offered as key reading for trainees, since they provide an easy to access introduction to major theories of education and child development. However, the chapters on images, symbols and metaphors take the work to another level, providing interesting examples and analyses based upon real examples and original ideas. Elizabeth Ashton has provided us with a thought-provoking, interesting and innovative work which merits close reading and wide dissemination.