I’ve written a letter of complaint to the kids’ school.
It concerns my daughter’s class outing to Stellenbosch today.
They’re going to a place called Beagle Encounters.
It’s at Spier.
Now to be fair, I haven’t done a massive amount of research into this place, but to be fair, I really don’t need to: the name is pretty much self-explanatory, and the fact that it’s at Spier means it will be overrated, expensive and achingly zeitgeist.
Much like my feelings regarding forcing specific religion and/or political views upon my children, I don’t believe that there is any value in the promotion of certain, troublesome breeds of canine either.
We get quite enough of that nonsense at home, thank you very much.
That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the value of knowing about these things. It’s the pushing of the kids in any one specific direction that bothers me.
Also, having reviewed the proposed Learning Outcomes for Term 2 this year, I can see no link between this visit and any of their classwork. Let’s face it, visiting several slobbering, disobedient, tri-colour dogs is not going to help with Maths or English, PE or Languages, is it?
And even in Science, they’re supposed to be learning about birds. Not dogs.
I’m all for school trips and all, but surely it’s not that hard to simply link them in with something that the kids are currently doing? This seems, at best, a bit of a jolly. And one with an unnecessarily excessive number of flappy ears involved as well.
No, I think I’m well within my rights to let the school know my feelings on this matter.
