Travel now not tomorrow

Primary school teachers in the UK have criticised an English test of 10- and 11-year-olds because the text included background that was not part of the children’s culture. They said it was unfair as the children had no experience of the setting. It made me wonder if children should only be exposed to stories from their own way of life. I remember being given an excerpt from The Kontiki Expedition to answer question on when I was about 11. It was the first time I had read about travel adventure, and it opened my little world – people travelled for adventure! I’d thought they only travelled to visit relatives or for work. I knew nothing about the Pacific current, the Peru and Tahiti. But that brief passage from the book stayed with me, as did the author’s name, Thor Heyerdahl. Last year, I found the book, reissued, and took nothing but joy in reading the recreation of a transport passage from South America to the Pacific Isles.  Similarly reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, wha...