X is also for….. X files

If you want to amaze your teachers or friends, here are some strange but true facts about animals.

1)      If Cockroaches give you the creeps you’ll be delighted to know that they feel exactly the same way about us. After being touched by a human, cockroaches run away and hide and wash themselves thoroughly.

2)      There are fish in the Amazon Rainforest called anableps whose eyes are divided into two parts so that they can see above and below the water at the same time.

3)      Honey bees have to fly around 88,500 Km to make just under ½ Kg of honey.

4)      Swifts sleep in the air. They can shut down just half of their brain so they can sleep without hitting the ground.

5)      The Arctic Tern flies further than any other migrating bird. It travels about 71,000 Km per year which is more than 2 million kilometres in its lifetime.

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Poisson d’Avril

On the 1st of April in France they celebrate Poisson d’Avril. The idea of the day is to pin a paper fish on your friend’s back without them noticing.

Nobody knows for certain where this tradition has come from but it’s believed to date back to 1564 when Charles IX decided to move the beginning of the year from 1st of April to the 1st of January. In the days before phones and instant messaging, it took a long time for communications to filter through to everybody, and so the people in the countryside, that is mostly the uneducated folk, were the last to receive the news and so they carried on celebrating new year on the 1st of April. The upper classes mocked them for this, and started giving gifts on the 1st of April as a joke.

Because April 1st was often still during the period of Lent, meat was not allowed and so often fish would have been the main part of meal. For this reason many of the gifts were of fish, and over time the presents became more jokey and some people began to give fake fish on this day.

One of the best things about this time of year in France now, is that you can buy chocolate fish in the shops!

Related post: April Fools’ Day

Of Einstein and Fish

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

This is a quotation, attributed to Albert Einstein, which is repeated over and again all over the internet every time our government makes a proposal about education that some people disagree with. To me, it’s one of life’s little annoyances. Why?

Well, for starters Albert Einstein never actually said it. If you don’t believe me take a few moments to Google it now, and if you find any proof at all that he did, please leave a link in the comments below.

Secondly, it’s untrue. If fish had never climbed trees there would be no tree-dwelling animals now and there would be no humans. We’d all still be swimming round at the bottom of the oceans.

Thirdly, it’s even more untrue. There are actually fish, living today, which can climb trees. Seriously. Google it.

Fourthly, it’s a downright lie. Not everyone is a genius. Most of us aren’t. The ones who are make it into the history books.

And Lastly? It’s just a cop out! It’s a way of absolving ourselves from the responsibility of educating our children.

When I look back over my childhood, there are two types of teachers who stand out. There are the ones who made me believe I could do anything if I tried and who then gave me the confidence to try, and there are those who told me I’d never climb trees because I was a fish. I’ll never forget Mr Holmes, who saw the potential behind the timid little mouse and gave me a speaking part in the school play. I’ll also never forget the music teacher (who I won’t name) who told me that with a voice like mine I really shouldn’t sing, because over 30 years later I can’t even sing along to the radio if I think someone else is within earshot .

Our job as teachers is not to look at our class and sort them into runners, swimmers, fliers and climbers. Our job is to equip every child with shoes, flippers, wings and ropes and to make sure that every single one of them achieves all of the skills to the best of their ability.

Some of them may run marathons and some may never run further than the corner of the road; some may swim the channel and some may just about doggy paddle their way to a 5m badge; some may soar high above the ground and some may only hover a few centimetres from the floor; some might make it to the top of the tree and some may never make it past the first branch. But with the right teaching and encouragement, there is no reason why any child in a mainstream school, and most children in special schools, shouldn’t run and swim and fly and climb.

So you’ll never find me retweeting nonsense about Einstein and fish. Instead you’ll find me in my classroom, helping some of the children build a ladder to reach the first branch and holding a safety net to encourage the others to reach for the top of the tree. Who’s with me?