Hedgehogs
I don’t know whether clay modelling is still something that children do at school. I came across these dusty hedgehogs that my children made when they were about eight years old. I suspect they had the same class teacher, two years apart, and perhaps the study of hedgehogs or other small mammals was part of the curriculum. It was definitely before the advent of the Great Education Reform Bill of 1988, always called Gerbil, but officially labelled the Education Reform Act.
Gareth's hedgehog had a very prominent nose. Perhaps his teacher made much of the hedgehog's predation on insects, snails, frogs, mushrooms and other delicacies.
Before the National Curriculum was established, teachers were freer to follow their own pursuits and interests, to go off at a tangent. This worked well for those who still felt that children should be ’well grounded’ in the basics, the well-known Three Rs, but were able to interest their classes in other things. I well remember one seven-year-old excitedly telling her mother, ‘Mrs Cooke made fog!’
Anyway, the little hedgehogs my son and daughter made were brought home proudly to be displayed. My son’s work of art was intended to be a money box, with a slot in the top. Whether that was his idea or the whole class was encouraged to make money boxes, I don’t know. When his younger sister made hers, it did not benefit from a slot.
We used to see hedgehogs in the garden from time to time, but I haven’t seen one for an exceptionally long time. Our Jack Russell, Daisy, used to find one occasionally and come in covered in fleas. That was almost forty years ago. Fortunately, hedgehog fleas don’t survive on anything other than hedgehogs.
I’ve just found out that there are seventeen species of hedgehogs, though there are none in Australia and none now living in the Americas. New Zealand hedgehogs are an introduced species, as they are in the Outer Hebridean islands of Benbecula and North Uist.
They are distantly related to the much smaller shrews. Although their prickly spines are usually brown, the hedgehogs of Alderney, in the Channel Islands, are blonde.
In Britain, the population of rural hedgehogs has declined rapidly since 2000.
I have a hedgehog in my garden! But like your two, he's pretty stationary and hard.
ReplyDeleteWhat great memories. It's lovely that you still have them. One year, when I was staying with Mum, I looked out of the flat window and there was one in the common back garden. I managed to actually get a couple of photos before it hurried away.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe I've ever seen a live hedgehog.
ReplyDeleteAre porcupines hedge hogs. We have lots of porcupines here.
ReplyDelete17 species of Hedgehogs! I thought there was only one kind. They're cute as a money box or paperweight. I prefer the days when kids learned the three R's and were able to also learn odd things the teachers thought of. These day everyone HAS to stick to the curriculum and everything noted in hours and hours of unecessary paperwork.
ReplyDeleteGareth's and Susannah's hedgies are adorable!!! As you said, we have none here but many do keep them as pets. I'm not certain that's necessarily a great idea, but who am I to say? Children in elementary-level public schools here used to make just little clay (unglazed) pots but my son went to parochial school so I have no hedgehogs nor pots to treasure. ;-)
ReplyDeleteReally cute. Interesting about the different species. We need to mate the hedgehog fleas with the dog and cat fleas here so they'll croak too on their own. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteYour daughter's hedgehog looks quite lifelike in its proportions and shape, and she was only 8 when she made that!
ReplyDeleteOur gardens are too tidy and our roads too busy. Hedgehogs need places where they can hide, and find food, and they don't do traffic very well.
We have some in the large old gardens in my immediate neighbourhood; I have seen and heard them several times over the years but not in a while.