Which dreams should children follow?

Is it right to tell children to ‘follow their dreams’, or are TV talent shows setting young people up for a fall, asks Mike Davies?

You can be anything you want to be. Apparently. You can achieve your dream. You just have to want it enough. How do I know? It’s everywhere, all over the media, so it must be true – a wonderful wave of possibilities, washing over the nation. So why does it make my heart sink? Maybe it’s because I worry. I worry what we’re doing to our children.

Personally, I blame TV talent shows. Most of you will be familiar with the format: the lights dim, the microphone is shoved into the contestant’s face and he is fed the inevitable question, “What does winning this competition mean to you?”

The answers are almost identical. Pick your favourite from the following:

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“It means everything to me.”
“If I can’t do this, I don’t know
what else I could do.”

What, nothing? There’s nothing else you could do? If you didn’t win, you would sit at home and stare at the wall for the rest of your life? You couldn’t, for example, find a job you didn’t mind doing and spend time nurturing positive relationships with friends and family?

Britain’s got talent – that much is very clear. But that talent covers an enormous range. As every teacher knows, any class will have those who are good with words, those who shine at maths, the sporty ones, the focused ones, the sparky ones. And while we’re about it, let’s not forget the helpful ones, the kind and considerate ones, the sensible ones, because they are all important qualities.

So why is there such a disproportionate emphasis on gaining celebrity? No amount of ‘wanting the dream’ is going to turn most people into successful artists. What message are we sending to our youngsters? Are we saying that they’re failures if they don’t achieve stardom?

My children’s novel, Lousy Thinking, is about a head louse that accidentally connects with the brain of an under-achieving primary school boy. It would have been easy to allow the bug to boost the boy so much that he could be anything he wanted to be, but I didn’t. Instead, the head louse shows him how much unused potential he has and helps him to make the most of what he’s got. I even introduced another boy’s brain to illustrate the differences between people. Why? Because it is simply not true to say that anyone can be the best at whatever they want. We are all different; we have different strengths and weaknesses. Why not be honest about what’s possible and value what we have? I’m sure it would make people happier.

It’s not that dreams are bad per se, it’s just that dreams are not reality. I would prefer our children to have aspiration. To me, aspiration involves building on what you like and what you’re good at in order to better yourself, and not just financially. It’s a theme that I’ve been exploring during my school visits. When I talk about being an author, I don’t just encourage the children to write because, important though writing is, it will never be the chosen career of most of my audience. Instead, I try to get them to think about where their own skills would fit within the lifecycle of a book, from illustrator to shopkeeper. You can imagine how many eager volunteers I get for the position of delivery driver!

Why does this matter?

Recently, businesses have been warning that demand for maths, science and technical skills outstrips supply.

Apparently, some engineering firms have even been turning down orders because they don’t have enough people of the right calibre to fulfil them. Of course, we could blame teachers – most people do. But isn’t it possible that our culture has long undervalued some skills at the expense of others? After all, we never seem to have a shortage of talent show hopefuls.

So what should we, as teachers, do about it? Probably nothing. Not officially anyway. There are quite enough demands on us and it’s not fair for society to keep inflicting its shortcomings on the education system. However, I think we can all make time to encourage children to exchange a narrow range of celebrity dreams for a broad range of realworld aspirations.