After reading the Telegraph on the 23rd, myself and a few friends had a few different views on one story. The Telegraph ran a story on a nine year old boy, Steven Cheek, after his school had reprimanded him 'racist.' This was after Steven was playing with his Polish friend and said, "we've got to shoot the German Army."
My first thought was to blame the parents, thinking, 'how on earth does a nine year old boy know about the second world war and who was to blame?' I certainly do not remember learning the reasons of the second world war until I was about thirteen. Therefore this lead me to believe that the parents had taught him about it and that he had received his knowledge from them. After talking it over with a few people, I found that I was the only one to be blaming the parents. The reasons given by my opponents was that they had learnt about the war before becoming nine from television programmes and films, such as 'Dad's Army' and from the 'Blackadder' shows.
I then picked upon the point that these shows mentioned are not for children, especially nine year olds. This then, brings the fault back upon the parents. The parents are the people that dictate to their children what they can watch, therefore if the parents are allowing their children to watch scenes from wars, the parents are indirectly to blame.
However, even though I am 'blaming' the parents, they are still educating their children on their history and the world around them, in any way that they see fit. Does this then mean that they are teaching their children to become racist or just simply teaching them the facts of what has happened before them?
I think people have to remember that 9 year olds aren't grown ups, in fact some can still be pretty naive; they ask 'mum and dad' many questions, in which they expect replies. A parent simply explaining that there was a war where we fault against the Germans is not racist, it is fact. The issue that the boy’s friend was Polish also doesn’t need to be such a big problem either; with so many Polish families settling here it is not uncommon for young children to befriend other children form different nationalities.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem here is that this has been over exaggerated for a story; can nothing be said, even from the mouth of an imaginative 9 year old playing war games, without it being twisted into something malicious?