Children’s video can teach adults a valuable lesson

I once interviewed Aileen Neilson, wheelchair curling Olympic champ, whose day job is teaching in a small, rural primary school.

She told me a story about her pupils, who were all around six or seven at the time, being asked to work on a project about disability.

She asked them to put their hands up if they knew anyone who was disabled.

As she wheeled herself around the classroom, she watched in amazement as one by one, they hummed and hawed, wracking their brains to come up with some suggestions.

“My grandpa can’t see very well any more, does that count?” wondered one little girl, and another suggested her next door neighbour, who “walks with a stick.”

No-one mentioned Aileen.

Children see difference differently, as a timely new video (www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/everyones-welcome) from BBC children’s channel CBeebies brilliantly explains.

I love CBeebies, although my own children are now ‘too old’ to watch it as religiously as they once did. I learned a lot in the pre-school years, not least a fantastic grounding in marine biology thanks to the Octonauts, and how to create a cactus out of bubble wrap, courtesy of Mister Maker, which is more useful than you might think.

But this latest offering from them is pure genius.

It’s part of the channel’s new campaign, Everyone’s Welcome, which aims to promote thought-provoking discussion on diversity.

The kids in the video discuss what makes them different from each other and top of the list are things like loving/not loving lettuce or being good/being rubbish at tig.

To the adult viewer, the kids are very obviously different – different skin colours, accents, abilities – but none of that matters to the children who are much more focussed on things like toe-size and dancing ability.

Just like the kids in Aileen Neilson’s class, they see people for who they are, regardless of race or religion or disability. THEY get that friendship and openness are what really count.

It’s only as children get older that they begin to copy the adults around them, and that’s when it all starts going pear-shaped.

This video is similar to the brilliant Danish TV film (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD8tjhVO1Tc) that went viral in January, which demonstrated that - as MP Jo Cox, who was murdered a year ago, would have said - we have more in common than divides us.

It’s a sad state of affairs that we need reminding of something so basic, but you only have to look at recent events to understand that we really, really do.

CBeebies are spot on with this little gem of a video. It should be compulsory viewing for all so-called grown-ups at least once a day. We might all learn something.