Is your teacher scared of nature?

In my classroom I spoke to a teaching assistant who screamed when she saw a spider. I asked her not to do that, as it would encourage children to react in the same way. Another teacher asked his class to write a poem entitled, 'What I hate about spiders'. Yet another teacher swats wasps. In my class children know that if they keep still they will not be harmed if a wasp investigates them. They know how to carry stray bugs outside, and gently blow on them so as not to harm them when releasing them. I have always found that children love insects, bugs and arthropods and gastropods of all kinds, as well as larger animals. They want to learn more about them, to study them without hurting them.They sometimes change as they get older. They sometimes forget how to respect nature, and how to live in harmony with it. Are the adults in their lives to blame? Or do some people just change their reactions and their values as they grow up and age?
Dr Mark Spencer (who appeared on the BBC Museum of Life series) thinks the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of teachers, who are alienated from the natural world. Like me, he sees children as young naturalists, who can help to halt biodiversity loss in future, and who can lead the world in showing how all living things are inter-connected.
Is this a case of educating the educators, of teaching the teachers? Is it too late to teach grown-ups a genuine love and respect for nature if they haven't already got it? Or is it never too late to change your values? Could children teach their teachers how to love the natural world?
What do you think?
Daily Telegraph: 'Teachers scared of nature' 7.8.2010.