Around 1980, I worked in a number of kindergartens in Oslo, Norway. I was a so-called assistant – in other words, I had no qualifications. I was also interested in so-called Super 8 film – that is film with sound. However, the movies I post here are without sound, because I have scanned the movies on a machine that did not have the sound function. Nevertheless, not much is lost with the loss of sound. The film clips was taken at ‘Hallenhagen barnehage’ (Hallenhage kindergarten) in East Oslo central.
I imagine that kindergartens have not changed much in the last 40 years in Norway. Children are most likely still eating mackerel sandwiches, and playing outside in all weathers – come rain, snow or whatever.
The film clips show that children have an unquenchable thirst for play – and not least for ‘working together’. Perhaps adults can learn something from children. Of course, children had their upsets and quarrels, but this was never allowed to disrupt their playing together. Race and gender had no meaning for these children – prejudices was something they ‘learnt’ later in life.
In Norwegian – the children have a word ‘muring’ – God knows how I should translate this into English – but it involved playing with sand and water, creating channels, and working together – a kind of construction work. There is no differentiation between boys and girls – thus, the boys and girls had equal roles in this ‘construction’ work.
Children are also great ‘play actors’. One boy called Nicholas liked the group called “Kiss”, so I arranged a concert where they could play like Kiss.
I also had a movie projector, and used to show them Tom and Jerry movies – which they loved – especially when Jerry inflicted pain on Tom! (‘David and Goliath’).
I even carried out some ‘Olympic Games’ – but this was not always a good idea – as children would become unhappy when they ‘lost’, and sometimes break out in tears. Perhaps this is something else we can learn from – ‘everyone’ loves competitive sports – but what about the losers? The major nations invest much in international sports, just as they invest in the military. In other words, if they succeed in international sports, this seems to imply that this gives them the ‘right’ to oppress the ‘losers’ – a kind of primitive Darwinism or Hitlerism.