The Cup Doesn’t Stand Up

My son Toby has been doing something at school called Forest School.

You've probably come across it before. It's one of those outdoor learning programmes where kids learn practical skills, spend time outside and generally get muddy while calling it education.

He's really into it.

A while back they started teaching whittling and, according to his teachers, he turned out to be pretty good at it. Good enough that he eventually earned what they call a "knife licence", which basically means they've taught him how to safely use a knife and they're happy for him to get on with it.

He was absolutely buzzing about it.

For about a week all I heard was:

"I get to use my knife next Thursday."

Every conversation somehow came back to the knife.

At one point he told me he needed a bigger breakfast on Forest School day because he wanted to make sure he could concentrate properly while using it.

I have to admit, I was quite impressed by how seriously he was taking it.

Then Thursday arrived.

He came out of school looking disappointed.

"Forest School got cancelled."

Apparently the people who had been running it weren't doing it anymore. I've never found out exactly why. It sounded like one of those boring administrative reasons that adults understand and children translate as, "They're not allowed to do it anymore."

Whatever the reason, Forest School disappeared.

A few weeks later it came back.

Toby came home excited because it was starting again the following week. He immediately started talking about whittling and knives again.

I tried to gently point out that it might not be exactly the same.

Different people were running it now. They might do things differently.

He didn't appreciate my attempt at managing expectations.

Children rarely do.

The following week he came home and announced:

"I didn't get to use my knife."

I told him that was a shame.

Then he added:

"We're doing pottery now."

Pottery.

At Forest School.

I wasn't entirely sure how we'd made the jump from woodland survival skills to ceramics, but he seemed happy enough with it.

A couple of weeks later he told me he'd made a cup.

Now, when somebody says they've made a cup, you automatically picture something reasonably cup-shaped. Maybe a bit wonky. Maybe slightly lopsided.

But still recognisably a cup.

Toby then explained that his cup couldn't actually be used as a cup.

Naturally, I asked why.

It turned out that while everyone else was making cups designed to hold liquid, he'd misunderstood the assignment entirely.

He thought they were just making cup-shaped objects.

As a result, he'd never stopped to consider that a real cup needs a flat bottom.

His cup had a round bottom.

I asked him why he'd made the bottom round.

His answer was simple.

"I didn't think about it."

Fair enough.

A week later he brought it home.

The first thing I noticed was how small it was. It's about the size of an espresso cup.

The second thing I noticed was that it doesn't stand up.

The handle is huge compared to the rest of it, so the only way to display it properly is to balance it on the handle.

And somehow that's exactly why I like it.

It's not perfect.

It's not particularly practical.

But it's unmistakably his.

You can see the exact moment where he realised too late that this wasn't just a practice exercise and was actually going into a kiln.

Most people would probably look at it and see a failed cup.

I look at it and see a brilliant story.

Besides, if every cup in the world had a flat bottom, life would be a lot less interesting.