Life in Switzerland

Respect for fingers
Switzerland is a country known around the world for its faultless workmanship . Development of fine motor skills starts early, in kindergarten, when children start working with serious tools.

My daughter once made a pin board out of bottle corks in kindergarten, and gave it to her grandmother in Scotland as a present. Gran was suitably impressed with her handiwork and started saving up corks so that she could make one too. She could see that she had to cut the corks in half and then stick them in rows on a piece of hardboard.

Child’s play, or so she thought. Somehow neither the scissors nor her bread knife really cut through the cork very well. She gave up and phoned us to find out the secret. She was quite horrified to hear that our six-year old had been working with a coping saw.


But fine motor skill operations using real tools are not limited to the under-7s. Once they are in primary school they take the precision work a bit further and learn to use drills, files and knives and bring home birdhouses made of wood and candleholders chiselled in stone.

In some countries teachers would be worried about lawsuits if something happened. It can even be a risk to let children use scissors.

In Switzerland the respect for fingers seems to include managing not to slice them off. I imagine accidents must happen from time to time but I have never actually heard of one.