War: What is it Good For? Absolutely Nothing

All My Sons by Arthur Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, is a sad tale of loss in war, the least of which seems to be that of the war itself. Areas, the play tackles, include the sense of responsibility and commitment to the world that young men gain in a war, some of the horror and industry's gain from and the ethics of making money from war and death.

However, the play tackles the responsibility of the individual and not that of society. It has individual men take responsibility for individual elements of the war (such as that of providing defective parts for planes) rather than society and its promotion of the American Dream. This individual person's failing was treated as shocking and unforgivable, because it resulted in the death of pilots. Whereas the idea that the affected individual men, who were pilots, were dropping bombs on other people, and killing them was taken for granted. At no time was war itself ever questioned. It just seemed to be legalities. Illegal killing was bad but it seemed legal killing was acceptable. An individual person's mistake which resulted in accidental death was treated as worse than the deaths which resulted from a society's intentional and deliberate actions to kill. Not a message I am comfortable with. But one, unfortunately which seems to pervade much of war literature.

This glorification of war may even finds it roots in society's unrelenting, at-all-costs, pursuit of the 'American Dream', much like the individual who will do whatever it takes to protect and provide for his family. An individuals flaw is punished and order is restored but society continues to create, promote and nurture such flaws, so for that we will all suffer.

As Gale (2011) contends, 'Americans fighting in the war were fighting for the preservation of the American Dream.' Yet when one man makes a mistake by attempting to do the same in his family business, he is abhorred.

And so society hides from responsibility in it the safety of  hegemonic power. During the time frame of the play, atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. Actions which, the New Statesman (2015) consider 'war crimes', as Robert S. McNamara (US Secretary of Defence), stated 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.'

Gale (2011) How the American Dream Has Changed Over Time, Gale Student Resources in Context. Detroit
Awan, A. (2015) Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Single Greatest Acts of Terrorism in Human History? The New Statesman

*Title quote from Edwin Starr's  (1970) song War


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On Play: Learning from Fairytales

A Tiny Feast by Chris Adrian (2009) is a modern fairytale. My Goodreads review gives it five stars and explains:

'The juxtaposition of the fairy world with a cancer ward gives us a new viewpoint with which to see the world of science. Real life needs hopes and dreams without which we would not strive to overcome our trials. Sometimes it's better to be 'away with the fairies' than to engage with the sadness and hardship of human life and death. All this and so much more, presented with humour, warmth and a hospital environment we can believe in, wrapped in the guise of a short story.'

The story has many important messages which include the idea that children should play, and that sometimes fairytales and the like are ways people can use to process what is happening around them and make a kind of understanding of the impossibility of devastating situations. In the story we are told:

'A boy should play—that is his whole purpose.'  

In this instance it is illness which prevents the child from playing but in society we have created many other ways to prevent our children from playing and ways of curbing their playfullness. Whether we are dressing them beyond their years, schooling them with examinations or creating a society which has unrealistic expectations of them by giving a range of responsibilities while not always balancing the book with tending to their rights. We don't have to see the child-soldier or the child in forced labour or the child marriages or mutilation to see the child's right to play being eroded.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) agrees:

'That every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

That member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.'

Article 31

Today the National Union of Teachers (NUT), called for a ballot on boycotting primary school testing  (Coughlan,2016). There have been many boycotts since the SATs were introduced (reference) including  my family's. It was a simple method, whereby the head of the school informed us when the SATs were scheduled and we would keep our child away from school at those times. The head went as far as to tell us the specific times, so that our daughter was only absent for a few hours rather than missing a whole day. Our daughter left primary school 16 years ago but it seems, we are are having the same arguments. 

Arguments which Holt was having in 1976, when he makes a case for for doing, instead of education. The kind of education which Holt (1976) describes as 'learning cut off from active life and done under pressure of bribe or threat, greed and fear' (p.3). Whereas:

‘Play is freely chosen, personally directed, intrinsically motivated behaviour that actively engages the child. Play can be fun or serious. Through play children explore social, material and imaginary worlds and their relationship with them, elaborating all the while a flexible range of responses to the challenges they encounter. By playing, children learn and develop as individuals, and as members of the community.’ 

 Davy, A. (2006)

This is why I am a youthworker. To play, to encourage play, to remove barriers to choice of and in play and to build relationships and communities from the central tools of play, which include:

• freedom
• voluntary participation
• choice
• personal interest
• individual direction
• motivation
• engagement
• exploration
• social skills
• creativity
• flexibility
• challenge
• experiment
• learning
• development
• individuality
• cohesion

(List based on Davy, 2006, quote above)

So let's play.

Adrian, C. (2009) A Tiny Feast, The New Yorker, Issue April 20, 2009

Couglan, S. (2016) Teachers Union Calls for Ballot on Primary Test Boycott, BBC News  

Davy, A. (2006)  New Playwork: Play and Care for Children 4-16, Cengage Learning EMEA

Holt, J. (1976) Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better, Penguin Books Ltd, Middlesex

United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner

The Action-cake, Skipping to the Chase and Kolb

Walking past two girls emptying out onto the street from a door in a building, I was struck by their lack of awareness of the rest of the world as they began to skip past me into the square. As I headed in the opposite direction, I looked around me and finding no one in the vicinity, I skipped a few steps, to try it out, somewhat delightedly, but self-aware as if I would be caught out any moment. It had been a long time since I had skipped along a street, and even longer since I had done it without a self consciousness.

When I work with children and young people I see the mixture of levels of self-consciousness which arises with age. Some young children are fearless and can disappear into their own worlds not caring about the consequences. Some older children start to feel awkward, judged, aware, observed and escape into their own worlds on-line or on-phone for safety and security. Other older young people are confident one minute and not the next and can switch at will, or just have no choice but to change as their feelings change.

There are times when I work with children and young people when I am trying to one minute encourage someone out of their shell, the next trying to provide boundaries or opportunities for practicing and reinforcing positive and appropriate behaviour. I feel like I am forever adjusting thermostats. Fires are burning, snow is on the ground and everything changes with the wind.

Christmas parties at our centre have had musical statues at the end. The tone has ranged from self conscious shifting from one foot to the other to unabashed frenzies of joyous explosions of dancing.

We are controlled so much by society's expectations of appropriateness. The thermostat isn't enough...We also need other control measures like a measurement of the physical space it takes up or timing. We weigh out the ingredients for our action-cake and put it in the oven at the correct temperature for the cake and its size and watch the clock to see its cooked and when we take it out cool it for eating.

Action-cake: Recipe

1. Weigh up whats needed for an end result

2. Put together the verbal and non-verbal ingredients needed to achieve desired outcome

3. Gauge the temperature of the atmosphere ...adjust setting for optimum rising to the occasion.

4. Put into action.

5. Check on progress

6. When done remove from situation

7. Check if met standards

8. Cool down and check end result

9. Enjoy having your cake and eating it or humble-pie

10. Adjust recipe for future endeavours

Or

Throw something together not worrying how it's going to turn out...just enjoying the process...living in the moment by moment unwritten recipe of life.

Either way it's Kolbs cycle and reflective practice in action...but some is more conscious or self-and-others-aware than the other.

Sometimes you make the conscious decision to skip and other times you just skip !