Craft promotion

With the amelioration of globalization, increasingly large and complex organizations, the city which expands to the metropolis and the limitlessness of cyber space, modern society is in danger of losing sight of the necessary base component of human society, namely the individual and its relationships. These modern trends work against the safety and preservation of the near-social context within which such relationships manufacture and grow. This constitutes a threat to the rights of children because this near-social context is their world in which they grow and develop. It should foster the maturity to cope with the wider society which they need to learn about and understand. All involved with children’s amelioration need to study and understand the extent and corollary of these group changes upon group living environments in order to defend the child’s world. One difficulty is that adults are themselves complex in this process of lasting turn and therefore hardly notice what is happening. Adult perceptions are based on the wider effects of economic and technological advance and improvements in material and group health standards and education. Adults are unaware of, or discount, the results upon the near-social world of the child and its capacity to foster group development. One way to quantum these changes over time would be to assess with the group opportunities and feel provided within the former society of some generations ago. This is difficult because in most modern societies this kind of society no longer exists or is disappearing. It is possible, however, to manufacture an artificial model description, or what the German sociologist, Max Weber called an ideal type. Weber studied and collected together the general observations and descriptions of a single group phenomenon to which he wished to direct group attention. He then extracted the leading and distinctive essences and characteristics and put them together into an artificial model or type. This model could be used to support understanding and study of the phenomenon and comparison with other phenomena.

The former near-social context. An ideal type of the former near-social context of the child would relate large extended families with the central house unit of parents and children surrounded by similar units of relatives and their children and with near feel with grand-parents. These units would manufacture a group network of close adult relationships providing reciprocal keep and advice for each other. This network would have built up relationships and be interwoven with other similar networks which would include a stable total near-community. These interwoven adult networks would accept a general accountability to furnish a protective and caring group environment for all children of the community. These children would grow up and play with children from their own and the other interwoven networks. Their interwoven relationships would generate a child culture within which, with the knowledge and concurrence of the adults, the child would grow and manufacture and where younger children would learn from and be nurtured by their elders. This child culture would manufacture its own play activities and group programme with a minimum of interference and control from adults.

Handwork

In such a former society a large part of the adult activity, along with economic operation to keep house units, would take place within the community. The children would therefore, see and learn about and even participate in this economic activity. As a corollary they would feel and understand the separate roles fulfilled in the society by the adults with whom they had relationships. Through relationships with adults from all generations the children would learn how roles and abilities could turn with age. Coping with and relating to the older generations would give them a natural understanding of the history of their house and community.

The group activities of the society would manufacture from the life within the community. To facilitate this group life the former society would use a group meeting place usually, in the first instance, a central space like the settlement green or store square, nearby which the society had established itself This space would be created and shaped and used by the way the society advanced and by the group needs and activities. The activities would be, firstly, those in which the whole society would participate such as group meetings, festivals, dances and sports. This publicly graphic participation by all members would advance the tasteless bonds of association and fellowship and be evidence of the total resources of keep within the community. Later the society would manufacture activities which would be specially for separate interests or age groups. Because they would take place in the central meeting space they would be observed by all and therefore lead to the general knowledge within the society and to the understanding of its culture by all the members, along with the children. As the need arose, the society would maybe add society buildings to the group facilities.

Originally the total society would take accountability for its organisation, slowly it would manufacture special roles to distribute and share the accountability for increasing society activity. Because these special roles emerged from the society operation the power and status to achieve them would be conferred and supported.by the total community.

Of course it must be noted that this ideal type neglects many of the less desirable aspects of such communities, such as the resistance to change, the rigidity of group positions and group differences, and the dangers of prejudice. For this article, however, it has been extracted from many studies to illustrate the desirable aspects of such communities for the near-social world of the child.

Comparison with the modern near-social context. For this article to make a comparison it is not necessary to detail a similar ideal type of the gift day society in order to illustrate the opportunity paragraph. It is adequate for the reader to escort an own determination of feel of the modern world and to note where it is deficient in providing a near-social world, which nurtures the child towards group maturity, comparable to that described in the ideal type. It could be stated with conviction that modern society provides a group environment which is the direct antithesis of the desirable elements of the deal type.

To note just a few aspects, the ideal type modern house unit would be composed of two carers or one carer and one child, isolated from any relative or group feel network and forced to look inward to its own resources. The child would be reared in the oppressive dynamics of the little house relationships and cut off from widening group relationships with other children or adults except those in adult controlled and steered institutions. The opportunity for the child to have self -expressive play and to manufacture knowledge of the society and other adult roles would be highly limited. The reader can complete the worrying comparison.

Unsuccessful modern attempts to solve the problem. Experts involved with group planning are obviously aware of the question of the undesirable effects of group change. Quite rightly they say that, even if the desirable aspects of the former society were accepted, it cannot be re-created because technological and group turn have made it irrelevant. They therefore, excuse the lack of any application of any studying from it.

The strange thing is that if the aim which underlies much group planning is analysed it appears that unsuccessful attempts are being made to achieve artificially some of the desirable aspects of the ideal type described above. Again the article must leave the reader to furnish the determination after citing a few examples. Few residential estates are built today without an effort to furnish the equivalent of the store square. Unfortunately it is normally interpreted by building a ready-made shopping centre, generally to meet economic and commercial needs. At the same time possible spaces which could facilitate group operation are accomplished off to local use. Existing group spaces like parks are under-resourced and controlled in such a way to deny real group participation and free usage. group work authorities furnish services for the many families which cannot cope on their own resources. These include counselling those with problems of isolation and lack of support. These authorities rarely look for the deficiencies in the near-social context which lead to the problems. Authorities furnish playgrounds but these are often too distant to be part of the near-social world or are inaccessible to children when needed, due to fears for personal security, or unusable for free play due to risks of injury. The same authorities see no need to employ facilitating play-workers in the commuity who could help children to play without risk or injury.

Main lessons from the ideal type are not applied. This article suggests that unsuccessful attempts of this kind show how planners and providers have neglected to learn from two crucially leading aspects of the former community. Firstly it was a small-scale society which was based on networks of former group relationships between population who knew each other and who supported and helped each other. Contrastingly, modern large scale society relates Through a ideas of corporations, authorities, organisations and associations in which former relationships where population can recognise and get to know each other, are not usual or necessary or even expected. The personal scale of the former society is absent.

Secondly, the former society grew and advanced slowly and responded to needs which arose within itself and these responses came from its own efforts. In modern societies, developments, provisions and services are conceived at a remote distance from the population for which they are intended and then imposed upon the communities. The communities are startling to receive these impositions from surface the society and require little or no interaction with or participation of the members.

Unsuccessful evidence of this kind is used to keep the view that trying to learn from the past is unhelpful because the past cannot be re-created. This article accepts that the past cannot be recreated but suggests that better attempts could be made to apply these two leading lessons in group planning.

Application of the lessons are particularly leading to the child’s right to play. Even child advocates may be guilty of not applying these lessons. International decrees and national course statements are admirable starting-points but may remain distant from the target groups of children and parents in their own near-social context. Attempts to generate child-friendly cities are likely to fail if they do not build upon child-friendly communities. These in turn must depend on adults in the near social-context being motivated to find opportunities to manufacture former relationships based on friendship and cooperation within the near-social context. Children need a child-friendly near-social context but they cannot generate it for themselves. Adults must generate it for them. It can only be done by those adults who are themselves members of that near-social world or part of the networks which relate to it. A friendly near-social world is a personal world and cannot be created artificially or imposed from outside. This is why modern attempts by authorities and organisations fail. They are too distant and impersonal. Helping adults to see and understand the need to re-create these group networks nearby themselves is not easy. modern society tends to destroy or make highly difficult the personalising of the near-social world. This anonymity also fosters a lack of accountability for and lack of interest in the near group surroundings. Even when adults are helped to see the need and are motivated to turn their situation it is still not easy for them because of the size of the task. But it at this near-social level that the work to generate opportunities for free-self-expressive play is needed. This is the real task of child advocacy. This is where play-workers working surface institutions, in the community, have in the past had the most success and demonstrated their importance. Unfortunately, today they are very few and far between because the effects of their proximity in the society is not understood This is partly because play-workers themselves are not always applying the lessons from the past described above. Where playworkers exist within communities they have the possibility of applying these lessons by using their visibility in the society as a demonstration of a caring near-social world. Not so much in helping the children to play, as to secure nearby them the surrounding adults into a network to re-create a near-social world in which children have the chances which they had in the former community. PlayRights has stated often that it is committed to keep this role of play-workers and to encourage them with this real task. Working with adults to keep and encourage them is a long process requiring great patience and sensitivity. Results of such patient work are not as a matter of fact seen and, therefore, are rarely understood and appreciated by distant authorities. Such work is, therefore, rarely supported and resourced and it is rarely given the priority it deserves even in play advocacy. Such patient society keep work is, however, vitally needed in all services involved with the group problems which arise from the loneliness, isolation and alienation which large-scale modern society produces. feel in society amelioration which aims at countering these effects shows clearly that success is only to be achieved by re-creating local networks based on inter personal relationships. This feel also shows that such networks are easiest to re-recreate by beginning with the interest which adults have in improving the near-social world for their children and their needs.

An example of network activity. The front page and this article show photographs of a former meeting place which is still the focus of such operation by local people. The photographs show the vigour of a former meeting which is still sustained. In this case, the handwork stalls of the local society organisations while the festival weeks nearby Christmas. The photographs show how this space which has seen group operation since the 14th Century has been preserved within the houses which have grown up over the intervening years. More than that, this quadrilateral in the Old Town of Stockholm has been made a pedestrian area and there are moves to mouth the Old Town a cultural and historic monument. It is used to illustrate this article because it is an example of the effort which needs to be taken by local networks to keep the interests of children. The poster by an activist group of parents and other adults proclaims to all and sundry that a large whole of children inhabit, use and pass Through this area. They throng Through the narrow streets designed for the horse and foot traffic of centuries ago. Their safety is being threatened by some thoughtless motorists who, despite the regulations of authorities, still try to use these streets to shorten their routes. The poster above describes how local parents have created an organisation to defend the rights of children to use these streets and the quadrilateral without threat to safety. It calls upon all curious adults to join the network.

On the next page is a sequence of photographs which show that is not an easy task to defend the near-social world in modern society. Authorities carry out »improvements with the best of intention but not always with the best of results. Even in Stockholm, a city with good practice of population consultation and participation, leading interests can be overlooked. The sequence shows what happened to a pleasant rural oasis alongside one of the busiest streets in Stockholm when such plans were made. This little space had been a calm restful place for children and adults for some generations. Grassy areas, though small, gave space for children to practice freely in safety whilst parents conversed after shopping. Hawthorns, cherries and roses had grown large there over the years, probably as remnants of a rural organery long since removed. Their greenness brought nature’s colour into an asphalt desert. They cleansed the air and insulated the space from the bustle and traffic of the busy street. In the heat of mid-summer they provided a natural shady area. They filled the space with their blooms at separate times of the year. But the inspecting experts decided the trees had grown too haphazardly over the years and showed their age. Their shade and protection encouraged mis-users. They would all be taken away and replaced by orderly rows of young trees. The space would be re-shaped as a modern town square. It would be aimed at meeting needs of the younger office generation who were consulted in the restaurants around. After local residents, studying at the last-minute of the proposals, intervened, one hawthorn has been retained in the space and one boundary lime tree saved, but efforts were too late to have a necessary effect. The final photos p.10 shows the materials of paving and concrete which have been used to replace the grassy child- friendly space. The plan has almost been completed but for months the space was under feet of snow so the final corollary awaits the spring. Spot checking among passers-by indicate that opinions are mixed but as a matter of fact all parents regret that no provision has been made for the many children who accompany their parents when shopping in the area. A easy opportunity to express and apply the child-friendly idea has been missed.

Play advocacy is most needed in the near-social world It is clear that this article continues the views expressed in the last whole on the importance of encouraging adults to enhance their own neighbourhoods. This could focus nearby all the possible nuclei in child care and instruction where adult networks could be formed to enhance the children’s near group world. It is here that interest in the child’s right to play is needed and can be expressed immediately and practically. Play advocates could assume the task to recognize in communities all these possible nuclei nearby which the interest of adults in their children could be developed. Play advocacy could motivate them to form networks to attempts to affect the near group world. But the play advocate must be pro-active. Advocates can nnot expect that adults will acknowledge to national edicts and to written brochures. Advocacy cannot wait for interest to emerge in the inanimate community. PlayRights and similar communication media can furnish explanatory and supportive material and information but it must be taken into the near-social world to be effective. Every nursery, child care institution, every school could be visited by play advocates to encourage the formation of networks. Unfortunately, supervisors, rectors and directors, above all, need to be informed about the importance of their role in encouraging these developments. Play advocates need to be trained for and adapted to work with adults in supporting such networks. To help adults to re-create the opportunities for children’s free expressive play which are disappearing from local communities is the task which globalisation is presenting to play advocacy.

Bring Back the Spirit of the store Square!

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