The RSPCA wants to ban animals in the classroom, urging teachers and nursery workers to instead get children to play with soft toys or use role play and drama.
Furthermore, the animal charity continues, instead of helping care for the school hamster, children should be observing animals’ behaviour in their natural habitat.
How that includes the millions of children growing up in inner cities hasn’t really been addressed. Apart from pestilent wild foxes and the odd rat, how exactly is your average London pupil supposed to observe animals in their natural habitat? Last time I checked there weren’t that many hamsters and rabbits hoppity-hopping down Upper Street.
OK there are green spaces in the city and yes a lot of nurseries and schools could, as the RSPCA suggests, create a wildlife area in their gardens, assuming they are lucky enough to have a garden and the local council hasn’t flogged it for flats.
But how are children going to learn to respect, handle and care for animals if they’re not allowed anywhere near them?
A hamster, rabbit or a couple of guinea pigs is as much a staple of nurseries and schools as milk and cookies.
Children can learn so much from these little creatures. They can learn respect for other life forms. They can learn that in order to care for an animal, one must be responsible and unselfish and consider the animal’s needs before their own. They can learn how it feels to have another creature totally dependent upon them for food, water, warmth and companionship, and these are lessons no amount of role play or My Little Pony can drum home.
Where better for children to learn about the creatures they share the planet with but in school or in a nursery? Where else can they learn that to care for an animal is a privilege – to take Hazel the hamster home for the school holidays is an honour – and to be a responsible and caring pet owner they must consider the needs of the animal on a daily basis? And where else can they do this under proper adult supervision?
If the RSPCA succeeds in removing animals from school and early years settings, it will have taken away one of the immeasurable delights of childhood – an invaluable learning opportunity wrapped up in a cute, fluffy, appealing package.
I once took Hazel the hamster home for the summer holidays. I wanted my own pet and my parents quite sensibly wouldn’t allow it until I had proved I could be trusted to care for one.
After six weeks of lovingly tending to Hazel’s every need, I was taken to a garden centre where I picked out a little chestnut-and-white ball of fluff all of my own.
By then I had learned animals weren’t a novelty. A dog (or hamster) wasn’t for Christmas, it was for life. I don’t think pretending to be a rabbit at nursery school or playing with soft toys really could have prepared me for that.