http://helene.ehclients.com/index.php/site/index/ en helene.guldberg@spiked-online.com Copyright 2010 2010-08-19T09:15:40+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/orang-utans_are_not_remotely_like_humans/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/orang-utans_are_not_remotely_like_humans/#When:09:15:40Z Experts should know better than to claim that great apes can communicate in a similar way to human beings.Time and again, we are told that humans are not that special after all: abilities previously thought to be uniquely human are now purportedly evident amongst the great apes. The most recent claim, published in the current issue of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, is that orang-utans use mime to make themselves understood. ‘Given pantomime’s sophisticated attributes, some consider it to be uniquely human’, the article’s authors, Anne Russon and Kristin Andrews, write. ‘Pantomime is gesture in which meaning is acted out; in humans, it can be as simple as twirling a finger to indicate a vortex or as complex as telling the Ramayana.’ The researchers analysed 20 years of data on previously captive orang-utans now living in the forest in Indonesian Borneo. They identified 18 cases of pantomime, 14 of which were addressed to humans and four to other orang-utans. One example, we are told, involved an orang-utan reminiscing through miming a past event. A female orang-utan named Kikan had injured her foot the previous week and a member of staff had used a fig leaf to seal the wound. This first-aid was apparently re-enacted by Kikan. Russon said: ‘She’s not asking for anything, which is the most common aim observed of great ape communication, but appears simply to be sharing a memory with the person who helped her when she hurt her foot.’ There is no doubt that apes and other animals are able to communicate with each other in the wild – whether through courtship rituals, dominance and territorial displays, or food and alarm calls. For instance, dogs bare their teeth and growl to signal to other animals to leave their territory. Cats try to look bigger and more menacing by puffing out the hair on their tails to signal to other animals not to oppose them. Subordinate chimpanzees use grunts directed to dominant chimpanzees to signal appeasement or submission. However, these are instinctive communications. The evidence for any animal being able to communicate intentionally – let alone ‘be able to make sense of their world by telling stories, and to relay their thoughts about the world to others’ as Andrews claims - is still non-existent. Michael Tomasello, author of a number of fascinating books, including Origins of Human Communication, who has spent many years studying the abilities of great apes at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center in Leipzig, tells me: ‘Without some kind of control observations we cannot be sure what [the orang-utans] are doing.’ For instance, ‘How often do the orang-utans make those hand movements in other, irrelevant contexts?’, he asks. The fact is that we do not know whether Kikan was trying to communicate her gratitude - or any other meaning - or whether she was merely making some random hand movements. As I argue in my new book, Just Another Ape?, one needs to go beyond first impressions and anecdotal evidence in order to establish the differences, and the alleged similarities, between human beings and the great apes. The researchers’ identification and description of a set of behaviours could be interpreted in a number of different ways. And even if there was evidence that some of the behaviours served a communicative function, we do not know whether this communication was intentional or not. Daniel Povinelli, former director of the Cognitive Evolution Group at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who has carried out some groundbreaking research to compare and contrast how humans and chimpanzees understand the world around them, tells me that the apes may merely have been emitting random behaviours. ‘[Emit] a random behaviour. If you are reinforced, stop. If more of what you want is still available, repeat the behaviour that was reinforced. If it’s all gone, stop. If you do not get what you want, [emit] a different random behaviour. If nothing you want is present, do nothing.’ It is sloppy simply to identify and describe a particular behaviour - or set of behaviours - and conclude that this is evidence of animals being able intentionally to convey meanings to other beings. Even if the set of behaviours was shown to serve a communicative function, it does not mean that the ape was communicating intentionally: it may be the result of random behaviours or instinctive communications. Take the example of vervet monkeys. Groundbreaking research by Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney in the 1980s on vervet monkeys in the wild showed a seemingly sophisticated method of communicating about the proximity of predators. Living on the edge of the savannah, vervet monkeys have many predators. Their chance of survival would therefore be greatly increased if they were able to respond appropriately to different vocal warnings. Indeed, it was found that the vervets have specific alarm calls for specific predators: the alarm call for an eagle is different from that for a leopard, which in turn is different from that for a python. From the outset of their study, Seyfarth and Cheney stressed that it could not be established from these initial findings whether the callers vocalised with the explicit intent of referring to the proximity of a predator. They were careful to point out that there was no evidence that the monkeys had ‘thoughts’ that they intentionally conveyed to others – such as ‘Oh no! I see a dangerous leopard. I had better warn the others quickly and make sure that they know it is a predator that may get us unless we seek safety in a tree.’ In fact, further research shows that the caller’s vocalisations are not ‘intended’ for other animals. In Origins of Human Communications, Tomasello demonstrates that the alarm calls primarily benefits the caller – by, for instance, distracting the predator – and that the other vervets are merely informed by ‘eavesdropping’. This was demonstrated by Cheney and Seyfarth in follow-up experiments where vervet mothers would see ‘predators’ approaching their offspring. The mothers would not give the alarm calls unless they themselves were at risk. In The Language Instinct, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker persuasively takes apart many of the ‘preposterous’ claims made about apes’ and other animals’ language abilities. He stresses that we all have a tendency to anthropomorphise – thinking that animals are capable of a lot more than they are in reality. ‘People who spend a lot of time with animals are prone to developing indulgent attitudes about their powers of communication’, he writes, giving the example of his great-aunt Bella who ‘insisted in all sincerity that her Siamese cat Rusty understood English’. But we should expect more of those involved in ape language studies. They should be prepared to evaluate critically the data from their studies. Instead, many of the claims of those involved in ape language studies are not much more scientific than those of his great-aunt, Pinker argues. I would extend that criticism to Russon and Andrews. For instance, in the research paper they claim that one female orang-utan acted out events in order to help her make sense of her experience. She ‘re-enacted her activities with her partner after deliberately turning her back on him, probably to understand them’, they write. How on earth can we know that this is what the ape was doing? Another example is the so-called evidence of an adolescent male ‘pantomiming a request’. He picked a leaf and a stem in front of a human staff member and ‘with eye to eye contact, wiped dirt off his forehead with the leaf then gave the leaf to [the human] to request that she do the same.’ (1) But we cannot know that this is what he was ‘requesting’. He may merely have been randomly passing the leaf to the human. Ape communications are incomparable with human language. We debate and discuss ideas, construct arguments – drawing on past experiences and imagining future possibilities – in order to change the opinions of others. We pantomime. We create everything from great literature to nursery rhymes that help us make sense of the human condition, and we can pass this on down the generations: some nursery rhymes have survived centuries. We can communicate an infinite number of meanings and develop an infinite number of arguments. We can debate and discuss everything from international politics and economics to the most mundane issues. I cannot see even the remotest comparison between the beauty, power and complexity of human language and an ape wiping its forehead with a leaf and passing it to another being. animals 2010-08-19T09:15:40+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/set_children_free_by_trusting_adults/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/set_children_free_by_trusting_adults/#When:09:18:35Z We can only give kids the independence they need if we have faith in other people to look out for them.Oliver and Gillian Schonrock have inspired a heated debate this week about how much independence children should have. The couple from south London have been allowing their eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son to cycle one mile unsupervised from their home to school. Alleyn’s Junior School raised concerns about the parents allowing their children to travel unsupervised. The headmaster, Mark O’Donnell, told a Sunday newspaper that the school was under obligation to consider the children’s safety. ‘If a school feels a child in their care is at risk, they have a legal responsibility to notify the local authority’, he said. In a follow-up statement, the school said that they had not actually reported the parents to the local authority, but added: ‘Both children are below the nine-years-of-age threshold currently recommended by the local authority (Southwark Council) for crossing the road independently. Moreover, Bikeability, the government-approved, cycle-training organisation, itself does not recognise a child’s ability to cycle unsupervised and independently until they are over 11 years of age.’ Earlier this week, I was invited by BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show to defend Oliver and Gillian Schonrock. I was debating Rebecca Andrews, a former police officer and author of Policing Innocence: Is Your Child Really Safe? Andrews’ concern was that by allowing the children to carry out a daily ‘routine’ without supervision, the Schonrocks were putting them at risk of being targeted by paedophiles. Apparently, this is what the McCanns - whose daughter Madeleine disappeared after being left alone at a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007 - were guilty of. Andrews argued that just as you shouldn’t leave your handbag on the seat of your car – increasing the risk of the car being broken into – you shouldn’t allow your children to come under the radar of potential paedophiles. To me, Andrews’ position is absurd and alarmist. If anyone is irresponsible here, it is not the Schonrocks for giving their children more freedom and responsibility, but the likes of Andrews for promoting such a negative message about other adults. As I argue in my recent book Reclaiming Childhood, today’s ‘stranger danger’ panic could create a hostile – and, as a result, a more dangerous - world for children. Of course, children shouldn’t grow up naive to the dangers of the world, but neither should we encourage the current generation to grow up fearing other adults. Strangers can play an important role in looking out for other people’s children. As a child, I remember being given specific instructions about never getting into strangers’ cars, and being particularly wary of strange men offering sweets in return for following them somewhere. We didn’t know anybody who this had happened to, but we took the stern and specific warning to heart. Other than that, we would expect adults – whether we knew them or not – to be there for us, and to help out if we ever got into trouble. Today we seem to expect the worst of people. As a consequence there is an assumption that adults will not look out for children. On one discussion board, a mother asked: ‘What if the child fell off her bike? Who would pick her up out of the road? What if there was a more serious accident?’ I am far more worried about the presumption that strangers would not step in to help than any possible small risk posed to the Schonrock children as they cycle to school (almost entirely on the pavement rather than the road, as it happens). It is precisely because of the paedophile panic that many would think twice about helping out. I would not hesitate to check whether a child who had fallen off his or her bike needed help, but a lone male would be less likely to do so. This is not because he wouldn’t care, but because of the fear of being suspected of having sinister motives. Andrews, if a little eccentric, is far from a lone voice warning about the risk from strangers. But, in relation to the Schonrock case, most people have raised concern about traffic rather than the danger of abduction. In a particularly odious piece in the Daily Telegraph (a paper that has on the whole published pieces in defence of the Schonrocks) one author wrote: ‘Waving off your babies to play in the traffic, and hoping they’ll survive on their wits is lazy, negligent and naive.’ Apparently, allowing children to travel to school unsupervised is tantamount to ‘chucking them into the sea with no life jacket’. The author asked what the mother of these children could be doing that was more important than ensuring the safety of her kids: ‘Who would she blame if her son was run over?’ Herself, no doubt. Just like any parent who tragically loses a child is likely to blame themselves. But that doesn’t mean it is a good idea to wrap children in cotton wool. It is understandable that parents worry about traffic, as roads are dangerous places, and children need to appreciate that cars can kill. But we cannot completely insulate our children from traffic. The car is the main form of transport for the majority of people, and there is a lot more traffic on the roads today than there was three decades ago. So children need to learn to cross the road. The age at which they should be allowed to negotiate traffic on their own will vary from child to child, and it is for parents to decide when their children are ready to do so. It is not necessarily an easy decision to make. But parents also need to weigh up the danger of insulating children from traffic and not allowing them to become sufficiently ‘streetwise’ when it comes to crossing the road on their own. Only two or three decades ago, nobody batted an eyelid on seeing five-year-olds cycling with older siblings unaccompanied by adults. Nor indeed were people taken aback by eight-year-olds being left in charge of their younger siblings. My sisters and I regularly looked after our younger brothers at that age. Things have changed, particularly in the UK. The much-quoted study One False Move shows a dramatic decrease in children’s independent mobility over the period of two decades. In 1971, 80 per cent of seven- and eight-year-old children in England were allowed to travel to school on their own; in 1990 the figure was only nine per cent. Figures from the UK Department for Transport (DfT) show that the proportion of primary-school children who walked or cycled to school unaccompanied was as low as five per cent in 2006. It was because they wanted to ‘recreate the simple freedom of our childhood’ that the Schonrocks decided to let their children make their own way to school. ‘We are trying to let them enjoy their lives and teach them a little bit about the risks of life’, said Oliver Schonrock. Good on them! We need more parents like the Schonrocks, who are prepared to go against the grain and give their children more freedom and responsibility. But more than anything, we need people to speak out against all the doom-mongers who would have the Schonrocks believe that they are feckless and irresponsible and that the world is full of dangerous people with sinister motives. Ultimately, parents will give children the independence they need only if they have sufficient trust in other adults – trust in them not harming but looking out for other people’s children. children and risk, parents and kids 2010-07-08T09:18:35+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/why_we_are_different_from_apes/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/why_we_are_different_from_apes/#When:09:12:48Z Guest blog post, Eureka Zone, The TimesToday human beings are constantly denigrated. Prominent philosophers, scientists, social scientists, novelists and aristocrats have gone so far as to call for the destruction of humans. On becoming a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, David Attenborough warned that the recent increase in human population was having a devastating effect on ecology and pollution. ‘I’ve never seen a problem that would be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more’, he said. Prince Philip suggests he could help reduce the human footprint: ‘If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels’. Sadly, this notion of the human race as a problem - or even a pest - is increasingly mainstream. Today’s misanthropic cultural outlook - one that continually denigrates humans and blurs the differences between humans and other animals, sorely needs to be challenged. The argument for human and animal equivalence is at its strongest in relation to our closest living relatives - the great apes. In my forthcoming book, Just Another Ape?, I therefore focus on the differences between human beings and apes - to show just how exceptional humans really are. It is an argument that needs to be put across - not only because it is historically and scientifically correct (even if ‘politically incorrect’), but because unless we have faith in our own abilities, society will stagnate. Whatever first impressions might tell us, apes are really not ‘just like us’. They do not have anything resembling human consciousness - the ability to think about a problem before approaching it, reflect on what they are doing while they are doing it and refine their actions accordingly. And the evidence for apes having human-like mental capacities is getting weaker and weaker as researchers develop more sophisticated ways of investigating what apes can and cannot do. Equally importantly, we humans are the only truly cultural animal - in the sense of being able to learn from each other’s clever feats through imitation, reflection and teaching. Because apes do not have this capacity they have not moved beyond their hand-to-mouth existence, and their lives have changed very little in the six million years since we ‘split’ from our common ancestor. While apes are still struggling to crack open nuts, humans have made life-changing inventions - from the cultivation of crops to the harnessing of electricity and life-saving vaccines and x-rays and much more. While apes are still struggling to communicate in the here-and-now, humans have invented alphabets and other forms of written symbols and ever more impressive means to disseminate the written word - from the invention of paper and ink to the typewriter and the internet. While apes are living in similar-sized groups as they did several million years ago, human beings have created cities, nation states, governments and global economic institutions. The differences in language, tool-use, self-awareness and insight between apes and humans are vast. A human child, even as young as two years of age, is intellectually head and shoulders above any ape. However, the question of whether apes have the rudiments of our unique human abilities - abilities that have allowed us to develop language, build cities, create great art and literature and much more - is an interesting one. An exploration of the extent to which apes resemble us may give us some insight into the evolutionary origins of human capabilities, but it will also show us how great the differences are between apes and humans. animals 2010-06-21T09:12:48+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/sorry_but_it_can_be_good_for_children_to_be_bullied/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/sorry_but_it_can_be_good_for_children_to_be_bullied/#When:10:35:01Z Daily Mail play, children and risk, education 2010-05-27T10:35:01+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/chimps_dont_mourn_like_humans/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/chimps_dont_mourn_like_humans/#When:08:44:38Z ‘Chimps “feel death like humans”‘, the BBC reported last week. And according to Scientific American: ‘Like tool use and self-awareness, distinct grief and mourning might be just one more thing we share with our closest living relatives.‘ No it’s not, says Helene Guldberg.These claims are based on two studies published in the journal Current Biology last month. In the first study, University of Stirling researchers watched how three chimpanzees at Blair Drummond Safari Park reacted to the death of an elderly female named Pansy. ‘For weeks afterwards it was uncannily quiet in the enclosure and the chimpanzees’ appetites diminished. They were clearly grieving’, said Alasdair Gillies, head keeper at the safari park and co-author of the paper. In the second study, two chimpanzee mothers were observed after the sudden death of their infants. A respiratory virus had swept through a small colony of chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea in 2003, killing five chimpanzees, including the two infants. The next morning researchers found that the mothers were going about their business as normal, foraging and travelling with the colony, while carrying the corpses of their dead infants on their backs. One mother carried the dried out corpse of her infant for almost three weeks and the other for more than two months. The University of Oxford biologist and lead author of the journal article, Dora Biro, suggested that the chimp mothers’ behaviour may show an awareness of the death of their infants. Keeping the corpse close to them may have been their way of dealing with an unbearable loss, in the same way human beings sometimes cannot let go after the death of a loved one. But equally, their behaviour may be explained in evolutionary terms indicating a ‘very, very strong bond’ between chimpanzee mothers and chimpanzee infants ‘because chimpanzee primates are born completely helpless, like humans’. In fact, Biro is honest in admitting that we cannot actually say what was going on inside the mothers’ heads and whether they had any understanding that their infants had died. And yet these two studies - describing the behaviour of a handful of chimps - have been widely reported as suggesting that apes are more like humans than we might previously have thought. James Anderson, who led the University of Stirling research team, said: ‘Several phenomena have at one time or another been considered as setting humans apart from other species: reasoning ability, language ability, tool use, cultural variation and self-awareness, for example. But science has provided strong evidence that the boundaries between us and other species are nowhere near to being as clearly defined as many people used to think.‘ In my opinion, the opposite is in fact the case. As I argue in my forthcoming book Just Another Ape?, science has provided strong evidence that the boundaries between us and other species are in fact vast. The problem is that not only journalism but increasingly science writing as well is littered with anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics to animals. This can be very deceptive. Admittedly it is difficult for human beings not to ascribe human emotions and human motivations to animal behaviour, because it is the only way we make sense of the actions of our fellow humans. But it is precisely for this reason that we need to ensure that our presumptions are properly tested. Many scientists reject any notion that animals and human beings are profoundly different. To do so, some scientists seem to fear, would give ammunition to creationists and spiritualists. But we do not need to turn to spiritual or ‘magical’ explanations in order to understand that the difference between human beings and other animals is a fundamental one rather than one of degree. As I argue in Just Another Ape?, some fascinating theories have been put forward over the past decade that go quite far in explaining the emergence, through evolution, of uniquely powerful human abilities. We don’t know how or when, but there must have been some gene mutation or mutations tens of thousands of years ago that endowed us with the unique ability to participate in a collective cognition. In other words, because we, as individuals, are able to draw on the collective knowledge of humanity - in a way no other animal can draw on the achievements of their fellows or of previous generations - our individual abilities go way beyond what evolution has endowed us with. We are no longer constrained by our biology. Unless we hold on to the belief in our exceptional abilities we will never be able to envision or build a better future - in which case, we might as well be monkeys. Just Another Ape? will be published by Imprint Academic on 1 September 2010. ‘An essential antidote to our narcissistic over-identification with our fellow apes.‘ Jeremy Taylor, author of Not a Chimp, Buy this book from Amazon.co.uk     animals, genetics 2010-05-05T08:44:38+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/apes/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/apes/#When:12:26:05Z A handful of chimp mothers carrying around their dead babies is not evidence of ‘human-like’ qualities.‘Chimps “feel death like humans”‘, the BBC reported this week. And according to Scientific American: ‘Like tool use and self-awareness, distinct grief and mourning might be just one more thing we share with our closest living relatives.’ These claims are based on two studies published in the journal Current Biology earlier this week. In the first study, University of Stirling researchers watched how three chimpanzees at Blair Drummond Safari Park reacted to the death of an elderly female named Pansy. ‘For weeks afterwards it was uncannily quiet in the enclosure and the chimpanzees’ appetites diminished. They were clearly grieving’, said Alasdair Gillies, head keeper at the safari park and co-author of the paper. In the second study, two chimpanzee mothers were observed after the sudden death of their infants. A respiratory virus had swept through a small colony of chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea in 2003, killing five chimpanzees, including the two infants. The next morning researchers found that the mothers were going about their business as normal, foraging and travelling with the colony, while carrying the corpses of their dead infants on their backs. One mother carried the dried out corpse of her infant for almost three weeks and the other for more than two months. The University of Oxford biologist and lead author of the journal article, Dora Biro, suggested that the chimp mothers’ behaviour may show an awareness of the death of their infants. Keeping the corpse close to them may have been their way of dealing with an unbearable loss, in the same way human beings sometimes cannot let go after the death of a loved one. But equally, their behaviour may be explained in evolutionary terms indicating a ‘very, very strong bond’ between chimpanzee mothers and chimpanzee infants ‘because chimpanzee primates are born completely helpless, like humans’. In fact, Biro is honest in admitting that we cannot actually say what was going on inside the mothers’ heads and whether they had any understanding that their infants had died. And yet these two studies – describing the behaviour of a handful of chimps – have been widely reported as suggesting that apes are more like humans than we might previously have thought. James Anderson, who led the University of Stirling research team, said: ‘Several phenomena have at one time or another been considered as setting humans apart from other species: reasoning ability, language ability, tool use, cultural variation and self-awareness, for example. But science has provided strong evidence that the boundaries between us and other species are nowhere near to being as clearly defined as many people used to think.’ In my opinion, the opposite is in fact the case. As I argue in my forthcoming book Just Another Ape?, science has provided strong evidence that the boundaries between us and other species are in fact vast. The problem is that not only journalism but increasingly science writing as well is littered with anthropomorphism – the attribution of human characteristics to animals. This can be very deceptive. Admittedly it is difficult for human beings not to ascribe human emotions and human motivations to animal behaviour, because it is the only way we make sense of the actions of our fellow humans. But it is precisely for this reason that we need to ensure that our presumptions are properly tested. It is sloppy thinking simply to apply human characteristics and motives to animals. Take the question of grief and mourning. There is no evidence that chimpanzees have an understanding of death. They have no rituals surrounding death. The evidence of human burials not long after the birth of Homo sapiens around 100,000 years ago is the first indication of any species having an awareness of death. Many scientists reject any notion that animals and human beings are profoundly different. To do so, some scientists seem to fear, would give ammunition to creationists and spiritualists. The science editor of the Daily Mail, Michael Hanlon, argues that it is impossible for human beings to be unique among the animal kingdom: ‘That the brains of mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and even fish share common structures and genetic backgrounds suggests quite strongly that our self-awareness is almost certainly not unique. Because not to draw this conclusion would be to assume something very strange indeed, something along the Cartesian lines – that somehow, at some point in the evolution of Homo sapiens, and Homo sapiens alone, something magical invaded our skulls in the Pleistocene and set up home.’ (1) But we do not need to turn to spiritual or ‘magical’ explanations in order to understand that the difference between human beings and other animals is a fundamental one rather than one of degree. As I argue in Just Another Ape?, some fascinating theories have been put forward over the past decade that go quite far in explaining the emergence, through evolution, of uniquely powerful human abilities. We don’t know how or when, but there must have been some gene mutation or mutations tens of thousands of years ago that endowed us with the unique ability to participate in a collective cognition. In other words, because we, as individuals, are able to draw on the collective knowledge of humanity – in a way no other animal can draw on the achievements of their fellows or of previous generations – our individual abilities go way beyond what evolution has endowed us with. We are no longer constrained by our biology. As Derek Penn and his colleagues at the Cognitive Evolution Group at the University of Louisiana and the UCLA Reasoning Lab argue: ‘Human animals – and no other – build fires and wheels, diagnose each other’s illnesses, communicate using symbols, navigate with maps, risk their lives for ideals, collaborate with each other, explain the world in terms of hypothetical causes, punish strangers for breaking rules, imagine impossible scenarios, and teach each other how to do all of the above.’ (2) Unless we hold on to the belief in our exceptional abilities we will never be able to envision or build a better future – in which case, we might as well be monkeys. animals, genetics 2010-04-29T12:26:05+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/the_myth_of_racist_kids/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/the_myth_of_racist_kids/#When:14:19:41Z The problem with anti-bullying and anti-racist policiesTeachers in Britain are obliged, under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, to record the number of racist incidents in their schools. This has resulted in the reporting of an estimated 250,000 such incidents, and race relations officials claim this is just the tip of the iceberg.Yet Adrian Hart, a community filmmaker and tutor, argues in The Myth of Racist Kids: Anti-Racist Policy and the Regulation of School Life that ‘the notion of racist kids is in large part a myth’. Hart became concerned about today’s anti-bullying and anti-racist policies while working on a government-funded educational film about racism in schools. He writes: ‘I observed a strange and concerning phenomenon: in modern cosmopolitan Britain, where race is becoming less and less relevant, and where children often have friends from many different ethnic groups, the dominant racialising influence on children is anti-racist policy itself. It is state anti-racist policy that is keeping the question of race alive at a time when many people - especially children - are living increasingly colour-blind lives.‘ He argues that today’s anti-racist educators ‘may have the best of intentions’, but ‘their missionary zeal reifies race, exaggerates racism and profoundly misunderstands children’. Through tackling head-on the controversial subject of children and racism, Hart deals with a number of important issues that are particularly close to my heart. He argues that ‘anti-racist policy operating in schools has had a disabling effect on both children and teachers’. In my recent book, Reclaiming Childhood: Freedom and Play in an Age of Fear, I also stress the need to appreciate that children are children and not nasty little brutes or helpless victims. Whereas in the past it was accepted that children, in their unsophistication, would employ the kind of tactless, heartless, even in-your-face offensive behaviour that adults could not get away with, today such behaviour in the playground is seen as just as shocking and problematic as if it were between adults in an office. The problem with this is that by focusing on bullying and racism in schools we can end up denying children the experiences they need to develop. Children need free time to play, have fun, stumble into difficulties, and work out how to resolve differences. Break-time is an important context for children to learn how to make decisions, take turns, and consolidate or break off friendships - and, of course, to let off steam and have some fun. As Hart writes: ‘Of course schools should, and frequently do, discipline children for name-calling and bullying, just as for any other form of anti-social behaviour. But the fact that children are required to respect adult authority in the classroom does not alter their need to engage - at break-time - in unfettered peer interaction. In this sphere adults should take a step back and allow children the freedom to flourish.‘ Anti-racist policy, like anti-bullying policies, also has a disabling effect on teachers. ‘It undermines trust in teachers, their autonomy and their ability to deal with minor disputes occurring in their school’, Hart writes. This is part of a broader problem where teachers, like all adults, are increasingly treated as emotionally illiterate beings: they are spoonfed information about what to teach and given detailed guidance about how to engage with their pupils. Anti-racist measures in schools have been put beyond criticism. Hart’s report is a brave and lucid attempt to break this censorious silence and hold these measures up for scrutiny. play, children and risk, education 2010-03-01T14:19:41+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/racist_kids/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/racist_kids/#When:14:01:00Z A brave new book challenges the introduction of anti-racist policies in British schools, arguing that they blow everyday spats out of proportion and split kids along ethnic lines.Teachers in Britain are obliged, under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, to record the number of racist incidents in their schools. This has resulted in the reporting of an estimated 250,000 such incidents, and race relations officials claim this is just the tip of the iceberg. Yet Adrian Hart, a community filmmaker and tutor, argues in The Myth of Racist Kids: Anti-Racist Policy and the Regulation of School Life that ‘the notion of racist kids is in large part a myth’. Hart became concerned about today’s anti-bullying and anti-racist policies while working on a government-funded educational film about racism in schools. He writes: ‘I observed a strange and concerning phenomenon: in modern cosmopolitan Britain, where race is becoming less and less relevant, and where children often have friends from many different ethnic groups, the dominant racialising influence on children is anti-racist policy itself. It is state anti-racist policy that is keeping the question of race alive at a time when many people – especially children – are living increasingly colour-blind lives.’ He argues that today’s anti-racist educators ‘may have the best of intentions’, but ‘their missionary zeal reifies race, exaggerates racism and profoundly misunderstands children’. The government’s recommended definition of a racist incident is ‘any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’. This is in line with the 1999 Macpherson Report, the landmark inquiry into the police investigation of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, which famously accused the police of ‘institutional racism’ and laid the basis for the framework for subsequent official anti-racist policies in Britain. This has, Hart says, ‘generated an army of race-equality officials and a raft of “interventions” – awareness-raising drama workshops, special assemblies, books, videos and teaching packs’. And as more and more teachers are actively on the lookout for racist incidents, so, unsurprisingly, the statistics show that racism among children is on the rise. The most recent figures available from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show a 29 per cent rise over one year in the number of pupils suspended from schools for racist abuse. Sarah Teather, education spokesman for the UK Liberal Democrats, obtained the figures through parliamentary questions. She says: ‘[This is] another shocking picture of the poor state of race relations in Britain today.’ The Commission for Racial Equality said the figures hint ‘that [racism] is deep-rooted and ingrained’. But do they, really? At one of the schools Hart visited he asked a teacher whether everyday playground spats are being elevated, somewhat erroneously, into racist incidents. ‘He looked horrified’, says Hart, ‘so I attempted to clarify. “Surely when kids fall out they grab anything that will hurt, then minutes later they’re friends again?” “We have to be seen to be taking racism seriously”, the teacher answered. “It’s the law.”’ Some teachers, however, are alarmed by the effect of official anti-racism on relationships between their pupils. One teacher told Hart: ‘I think we’re a good school, but because we are trying to be responsible and abide by the policy on racist incidents, our problem is that it’s having the opposite effect. In fact it’s creating an absolutely awful atmosphere around the school. Children who used to play beautifully together are starting to separate along racial lines.’ By viewing childish insults through the prism of adult politics, racial divisions are assumed to exist. But just as a seven-year-old calling somebody ‘Fatso’, for example, should not be taken as seriously as if a 30-year-old used that insult, so what a child means when he calls someone a ‘Paki’ is not the same as what an adult means when he uses that word. And by attempting to deal with such insults by elevating them into racist incidents, racial divisions are actively created. As children are made aware of the penalty of drawing attention to any apparent racial differences, it is hardly surprising that they might play safe by sticking to their own ethnic groups. Through tackling head-on the controversial subject of children and racism, Hart deals with a number of important issues that are particularly close to my heart. He argues that ‘anti-racist policy operating in schools has had a disabling effect on both children and teachers’. In my recent book, Reclaiming Childhood: Freedom and Play in an Age of Fear, I also stress the need to appreciate that children are children and not nasty little brutes or helpless victims. Whereas in the past it was accepted that children, in their unsophistication, would employ the kind of tactless, heartless, even in-your-face offensive behaviour that adults could not get away with, today such behaviour in the playground is seen as just as shocking and problematic as if it were between adults in an office. The problem with this is that by focusing on bullying and racism in schools we can end up denying children the experiences they need to develop. Children need free time to play, have fun, stumble into difficulties, and work out how to resolve differences. Break-time is an important context for children to learn how to make decisions, take turns, and consolidate or break off friendships – and, of course, to let off steam and have some fun. As Hart writes: ‘Of course schools should, and frequently do, discipline children for name-calling and bullying, just as for any other form of anti-social behaviour. But the fact that children are required to respect adult authority in the classroom does not alter their need to engage – at break-time – in unfettered peer interaction. In this sphere adults should take a step back and allow children the freedom to flourish.’ Anti-racist policy, like anti-bullying policies, also has a disabling effect on teachers. ‘It undermines trust in teachers, their autonomy and their ability to deal with minor disputes occurring in their school’, Hart writes. This is part of a broader problem where teachers, like all adults, are increasingly treated as emotionally illiterate beings: they are spoonfed information about what to teach and given detailed guidance about how to engage with their pupils. Hart writes: ‘Interfering with the daily life of schools, mistrusting teachers and undermining their ability to manage internal affairs has become the hallmark not just of official anti-racism, but of a range of interventions over social issues which the state now feels schools must play a crucial role in.’ As one deputy headteacher says in Hart’s book: ‘This top-down interference in how we manage discord in schools ignores our professional skills. In my experience of primary schools in the inner city, there’s always been a “hidden curriculum” which acknowledges and makes reference to how children acquire good social skills within a mixed environment. We don’t need these so-called “experts” telling us how to do it and monitoring what we think.’ Anti-racist measures in schools have been put beyond criticism. Hart’s report is a brave and lucid attempt to break this censorious silence and hold these measures up for scrutiny. Reclaiming Childhood is published by Routledge. (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).) My next book, Just Another Ape? will be published in 2010 by Imprint Academic. The Myth of Racist Kids: Anti-Racism Policy And The Regulation of School Life, by Adrian Hart, is published by the Manifesto Club. Buy it here. play, children and risk, education 2010-02-26T14:01:00+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/let_the_children_play/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/let_the_children_play/#When:15:56:57Z Adults’ fears and mistrust are the reason our youngsters can no longer enjoy free-roaming summer holidays, says Helene Guldberg in The IndependentA report published last week titled Big Mothered Britain found that traditional childhood games – such as skipping, taking part in conker fights, climbing trees and playing hopscotch – are in danger of dying out in today’s overprotective culture. The survey of 4,000 parents, commissioned by Robinson’s Fruit Shoot, shows that 80 per cent of parents believe our “cotton-wool culture” is to blame. Children are indeed losing out on many of the childhood experiences that my generation took for granted. There is a real danger that by cocooning, overprotecting and oversupervising children, society could end up denying the next generation the opportunity to mature and develop into becoming capable, confident adults. Children need to be given space away from adults’ watchful eyes – in order to play, experiment, take risks (within a sensible framework provided by adults), test boundaries, have arguments, fight, and learn how to resolve conflicts without adult intervention. Today, they are increasingly denied these opportunities. Parents feel compelled to monitor their children a lot more closely, and research indicates that children’s games have steadily moved indoors into adult-controlled environments. There are far fewer children and young people out and about on street corners or in parks unaccompanied by adults. The much-quoted UK study One False Move shows a dramatic decrease in children’s independent mobility over the period of two decades. Whereas in 1971, 80 per cent of seven- and eight-yearoldchildren in England were allowed to travel to school on their own, in 1990 the figure was only 9 per cent. Figures from the Department for Transport show the proportion of primary school children who walked or cycled to school unaccompanied was as low as 5 per cent in 2006. According to research by Play England, a campaign group sponsored by the National Children’s Bureau that calls for children to have access to good and free local play space, in 2003 some 67 per cent of eight- to 10- year-olds and 24 per cent of 11- to 15-year-olds had never been to the park or the shops on their own. Similarly, research by Colin Pooley at Lancaster University in 2006 shows that few of the young children interviewed by him and his researchers had dealt with many risks, and compared with earlier generations they had not had the opportunity to learn to negotiate or to deal with challenges. Ironically, if children miss out on opportunities for developing a sense of risk and danger, and taking more and more responsibility for their own lives, they are likely to be at even greater risk when they eventually are let out in the “big, bad world” without having learnt essential skills. How did we get to the situation in the first place where risk was seen as bad for children rather than something they needed to learn to deal with as a part of growing up? The media have a lot to answer for. No doubt, parental fears have been exacerbated by the relentless reporting of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007, and the previous stories we remember only too well: the murders of the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, and the abduction and killing of Sarah Payne in 2000. But to focus all our fire on the media is to let more official sources of fear off the hook: in particular, governments and the charities they create and sponsor. There is no shortage of government-sponsored campaigns that try to poison children’s minds with fear and distrust. Take the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act – passed into law in England and Wales in 2006 – which requires that millions of adults whose work involves coming into contact with children undergo Criminal Records Bureau checks first. The message this gives to parents and children is to be suspicious of any adult who wants to work with children. In effect, every adult is presented as a potential paedophile. This is also the case in relation to taking photographs of children. It is almost impossible in Britain today to take photos of one’s children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews in public places if they are surrounded by other children. The rules governing the use of cameras and camera-phones in swimming pools, parks, at children’s parties, school sports days and any other placewhere children might be present are ubiquitous and strictly enforced. The kind of photos that have traditionally appeared in many a family album are now treated as being akin to potential child pornography. This is a very sad development. Ultimately, parents will only give children the independence they need if they have sufficient trust in other adults – trust in them not to harm their children but to look out for them. When we grew up, our parents assumed that if we got into trouble other adults, often strangers, would help out. Today that trust does not exist – or, at least, it has been seriously damaged by government policy and media debate, along with a rising culture of suspicion towards adults’ motives. Asad consequence of this corrosion of trust is the impact it can have on children themselves. There is a danger that many children are going to grow up fearing and deriding the adult world. A Child’s Place, a report by the think-tank Demos and the Green Alliance, found that children are keen to spend more time out of the house but they will often be too frightened to do so because they associate being outdoors with danger. And a survey of 800 children aged between four and 16 carried out by the Children’s Society and the Children’s Play Council in 2001 found that 25 per cent were put off playing outside for fear of being bullied by older children. We need to ask what the consequences will be for society – and for children themselves – if the trust that children have traditionally placed in the various people in their lives is to be continually undermined and eroded by external third parties. It is only by challenging the safety-obsessed culture that depicts every adult and child as a potential threat that we can start to build a better future, and present, for our children and ourselves. play, children and risk, parents and kids 2009-08-04T15:56:57+00:00 http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/bullying/ http://www.heleneguldberg.co.uk/index.php/site/bullying/#When:14:27:42Z The latest NSPCC/ChildLine initiative on bullied children presents both adults and kids as toxic beings.A new report from the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children shows that a record 58,311 boys called the NSPCC’s telephone counselling service, ChildLine, last year – twice as many as five years ago. The issue boys were most likely to call about was bullying, which accounted for 12,568 calls. In the NSPCC pocket guide for schools, titled Worried? Need to talk?: Keeping Safe and Strong, children are warned that ‘bullying and discrimination, whether by adults or by other young people, are abusive and can hurt you physically and emotionally’. Bullying is defined by the NSPCC as ‘hitting, taking a person’s things, name-calling and making racist or homophobic comments’. Children are encouraged not to ‘suffer in silence’ and not to feel obliged to ‘deal with these problems on your own’ (1). Only a heartless person would want to see a child ‘suffer in silence’. But that does not mean it is a good idea for schools, or anybody else for that matter, to promote the NSPCC’s message, encouraging children who are upset and distressed to deal with their problems by turning to a faceless person on the other end of a telephone line. There is a real danger that ChildLine does more harm than good, by filling children’s heads with negative messages about the adults and other children in their lives. Take the statement by the head of ChildLine, Sue Minto: ‘Desperate boys call ChildLine because they feel they have no one to turn to. It’s heartbreaking to hear their stories of rape and violent beatings, often by their parents.’ She adds that sometimes, by the time the boys call, ‘they can be suicidal’ (2). But how many of the children calling ChildLine are likely to have been raped and violently beaten by their parents? Very few, I suspect. Yet this quote about rape and violent beatings, ‘often by parents’, was the one that the NSPCC decided to include in its press release about the tens of thousands of boys who called ChildLine last year. The vast majority of parents are not abusive and violent; they love their children and try to do their best for them. Sadly, some parents do physically and sexually abuse their children, and some children suffer shocking neglect – sometimes with fatal consequences. Society does need to find a way to protect these children. But a helpline is not the answer. The solution is far more complex. I would be willing to concede that ChildLine may do some good for some children on some occasions: undoubtedly there will be examples of children who felt better after talking to a ChildLine counsellor. A concerned voice on the other end of the phone can no doubt give some children the strength they need to get through a difficult situation. But I would still argue that, on the whole, initiatives such as ChildLine do more harm than good. My main concern is the potentially damaging effect of the negative messages that ChildLine, the NSPCC and others communicate to children: they frequently depict the adults and other children in young people’s lives as predatory, nasty and harmful. We need to ask what the consequences will be for society – and for children themselves – if the trust that children have traditionally placed in the various people in their lives is continually undermined and eroded by external third parties. Of course, it is not only the NSPCC that is to blame for this corrosion of trust. The government should take its fair share of blame, too. There is no shortage of government-sponsored campaigns that try to poison children’s minds with fear and distrust. Take the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act – passed into law in England and Wales in 2006 – which requires that millions of adults whose work involves coming into contact with children undergo Criminal Records Bureau checks first. The message this gives to parents and children is to be suspicious of any adult who wants to work with children. In effect, every adult is presented as a potential paedophile. And it is not only adults who are presented by the government and government-sponsored charities like the NSPCC as abusive and potentially harmful; children are also presented as nasty little monsters who can destroy lives through bullying. For some children – a minority – bullying is indeed a profound problem. Some children are lonely and isolated, shunned by their peers, and regularly ridiculed, humiliated or even beaten by other children. Adults do need to work out how they can help in such situations. But we should be honest and acknowledge that there really are no magic solutions when children are shunned by their peers. By intervening in a firm but sensitive manner, an adult may be able to help a child who is being bullied. But equally they may make the situation worse, creating a more permanent wedge between the ‘victim’ and the ‘bullies’. Also, by intervening an adult may undermine the child’s ability to manage the situation for himself, making life harder for the child in the long run. Also, much that is defined as bullying today is not bullying. It is boisterous banter or everyday playground disputes that could – and should – be resolved without adult intervention. When bullying comes to mean anything from ‘hitting, taking a person’s things and name-calling’ to ‘making racist or homophobic comments’, then virtually every aspect of children’s lives and everyday conflicts become subject to adult intervention, including by strangers on the end of a telephone line. As I have argued previously on spiked, anti-bullying campaigns – including those initiated by the NSPCC – lead to a situation where children become unwilling to, and incapable of, resolving their own problems with their peers. This could damage children’s development, and their relationships with each other, far more than the odd stone thrown or insult shouted. We need to appreciate that children are children, rather than nasty little brutes or helpless victims. It is true that children argue. They trade insults. They fight. But, more often than not, they make up again. As I argue in Reclaiming Childhood: ‘If we can harness a more positive outlook about our fellow human beings and challenge institutionalised suspicion and state-authorised scaremongering, then we might free up our children’s lives and allow them both to enjoy themselves and to learn how to become an adult.’ Reclaiming Childhood, is published by Routledge. (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).) (1) Worried and need to talk, NSPCC, 2009 (2) Surge in boys calling ChildLine, NSPCC, 27 July 2009 (3) Surge in boys calling ChildLine, NSPCC, 27 July 2009 play, children and risk, parents and kids 2009-07-29T14:27:42+00:00