The proposed testing of young children

in England was under discussion on Facebook yesterday. It followed an article in the Guardian which suggested the testing of very young children was verging on "immoral".
I certainly think it is wrong. I know one reader of this blog will be tempted to point out to me that there are places where children as young as five are already at work. That doesn't make it right. A five year old should not be at work. They may do some work but working full time at the age of five, particularly in the conditions they work on, is wrong.
But testing children at five - and long before that - isn't helping either. I know there are nursery schools in Japan which families fight to get their children into because of the rigid regime designed to ensure that the children attending it will get into the "best" schools and then into the "best" high schools and then into the universities. The son of the Japanese ambassador of the day told me all this and more - and how glad he was that he had been schooled in Downunder and was at university here. No, he wasn't lazy. He was just well aware that the pressure to succeed was not as great.
Thirty plus years later it has become a different story. 
Pre-school and kindergarten are now supposed to be a constant, supervised learning experience. Children are constantly being told what to do and how to do it. "Imagination" is actually guided by an adult. Books are about "facts" and "experiences". Politically incorrect nursery rhymes and fairy stories are being abandoned in favour of rhymes about climate change, animal care, racial differences and customs. If you learn to use a pair of scissors it is only as a one-on-one experience with an adult and you also colour that part of the picture red because the teacher tells you to do that - even if you want to colour it blue. 
Teachers now teach to the test. If the children in their class fail then they fail too. They must be doing something wrong.
When I was teaching I remember one of the boys coming in one morning looking white and obviously close to tears. 
      "Want to talk J....," I asked him quietly. 
He shook his head and sat down in his seat. After a moment though he got up and came up to me and muttered, "My gran died."
Then he burst into tears.
I stood there and hugged him briefly - yes, I know but it was in full view of those members of the class who had already arrived.
     "May I tell them?"
He shrugged and then nodded. So, when we were all ready to start the morning's work I told them what had happened. We spent the rest of the time up until the morning break talking about it. The work I had planned went undone. I wondered what their parents would have to say, whether I had done the right thing. 
It seemed though that I had. Not one parent objected. I actually had a couple of notes the following morning thanking me for confronting a "difficult" issue. 
I still have no idea how much good it did in the end but I don't think that time was wasted. It could have been spent on arithmetic and spelling but we spent it on life and death instead. We did the work later and missed a couple of "weekly tests" instead. 
I could not do that now for any number of reasons  - but I am glad I could do it then.