Soon after my daughter Isabelle started kindergarten in Switzerland, aged four, we received a note from the teacher. ‘We will be going to the woods tomorrow,’ it read. ‘Please bring a penknife. It must be sharp.’
This sort of comment would have many UK parents and teachers recoiling, but it reflects a very Swiss attitude to safety. Intercultural education specialist Marie Madeleine Steiger explains, ‘You want to protect your children from dangerous things, but life is dangerous. You don’t help children when you protect them from life.’
This attitude starts early. One Swiss nursery I visited never locked the main door, assuring me if a child wandered onto the street, other children would notice and bring them back. In another, the low, second-floor windows had no safety catches. ‘You worry too much,’ the owner maintained.
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