Can you remember, as a child, what you wanted to be when you grew up?

One of my earliest childhood memories is about wanting to be a policeman.  It was around this time of year – the school’s annual ‘bonfire night’ in fact.  At 5 years old, I did not want to go dressed up as the traditional Guy Fawkes.  No, he was far too scary. 

So I went, instead, as a policeman.  I put on my plastic replica hat, searched out my plastic replica truncheon and, in order to simulate the famous blue flashing light, I put Lego lights in each of my ears which flashed thanks to a small lever in my pocket. 

If nothing else, I certainly stood out in the crowd that night!

At around the same time, I also remember my sister coming home from school and informing my parents that she wanted to be a hedgehog when she grew up.

Today, there is a dog that lives two doors down the street with similar ambitions as the five-year-old version of me: he absolutely wants to be an ambulance.  He doesn’t have a replica hat or flashing lights in his ears, but he is no less dedicated to his dream.  So each and every time he hears a siren on the main boulevard behind our street, he howls – as if to say, ‘I’m ready, I’m on my way!’

Well, suffice to say, I never became a policeman and, thankfully, my sister never became a hedgehog, but it does make me stop and reflect on the human need to dream, to transcend and to seek after adventure. 

Let me explain.  One of the things that mark out our humanity is the ability to have one foot set firmly in the mundane and one foot in the fairy tale.  Take either foot away and we lose our balance: we cannot afford to lose sight of what we can see, nor lose faith in what we cannot yet see.

Children are particularly good at this: dreaming their way through the course of every day and holding on to this 20:20 vision. 

And if you don’t understand, try watching a young child for a day and you will soon see how ‘well-balanced’ she is.  At one moment, grappling with the basics – how to hold a knife or control a pencil in her hand – and, in the next, enjoying life as a princess in her castle, an adventurer travelling through a dark and dangerous jungle, or a pilot flying high among the clouds.

I guess that’s where the phrase ‘living the dream’ comes from, as used by the fortunate ones who somehow feel that the fairy tale adventure continues well into their adult life.

The fact is, however, that the large majority of people in the world are literally de-humanized well before their childhood has run its course.  The opportunity to play, dream or carry the adventurer’s torch is replaced by the day-to-day need to survive.  After all, what’s the point of flying high among the clouds, when you don’t have a job and your children don’t have enough to eat?

Much of this is about the economics of injustice, but I believe that education is also to blame.  Too often our pedagogical systems have sought to drag the feet of our children – often kicking and screaming – back to ‘reality’.  We have taught them, by our over-stated focus on what is ‘practical’, that dreaming and the spirit of adventure will not serve them well for the life that lies ahead.  We have naively stripped them of their dreams and, in doing so, one of the most precious gifts of humanity.

So imagine, for a moment, a system of education that teaches our children to dream again; in which every teacher has a responsibility to nurture, encourage and fan the seemingly impossible flame inside every child. 

Wouldn’t we at least then stand a chance of producing a generation of ‘well-balanced’ young adults, who face their future with hope, convinced that what they see can yet be transformed into the stuff of dreams?

Sitting at the dinner table last night, I asked my 5-year-old daughters what they would like to be when they grew up.

‘I’m going to be a policeman!’ said one, proudly.

‘I’m going to be a dog!’ said the other, with not a hint of self-doubt.

And just as I was smiling to myself and thinking how history has an odd way of repeating itself, the dog living two doors down from me heard a siren somewhere in the distance and went into full howl!