My friend was telling me about his daughter and how she enjoys school. He told me about how her class
teacher teaches maths. Apparently one of her techniques is to help children discover different answers to the same problem.
Example: “In how many ways can you arrive at the number 75?” Children can use addition, subtraction, multiplication or division to arrive at the answer. He then mentioned how his daughter would come back every now and then and show him and his wife a new way in which she arrived at 75.
He then said something which set me thinking: “I never thought that in maths there could be more than one right answer. This has opened my eyes to new possibilities.”
As adults most of us value “the right answer”. We have learnt from our childhood being right is important and there can be only one right answer to any issue. Most intelligent children will not accept this. We never realise this because we do not listen.
Let me give you an example. This happened several years ago. We had some family function at home and there were several relatives staying with us. My wife had employed a part time cook. He was working in our place and was also doing another part time assignment with another family down the road, a couple of buildings away. At one point my wife wanted the cook to be available immediately. So she asked our 11 year old daughter to go and bring him. I was watching this. My wife did not tell my daughter the flat number or the floor on which the cook would be working.
As our daughter was leaving, I asked her “How will you find out in which flat he is working?” Pat came her answer: “I will look for a flat with lots of footwear outside the front door.”
"I did not say anything. She returned with the cook within 15 minutes.
“Did your idea work?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Tell me why did you think of the footwear outside?”
“Look at our place. All the visitors’ footwear are outside. So I thought if there are lots of shoes, then there must be lots of people. If there are lots of people you need a cook for help.”
It seemed so simple after she explained it. However I must admit, when she left looking for the cook, I was not sure she would find him. Because I could not connect the dots like she did. My mind said “Ring the bell at every flat and find out till you locate the cook.” Of course, I am sure we could have found him this way. However, I was not right to think that that was the ONLY WAY to do it in.
Our daughter opened my eyes that day. There could be another right answer to any issue. All we need is an open mind to discover it.
I believe children have this intuitive ability to make these connections. They do it because they are not burdened by the concept of being “right”, or the concept of “the right answer.” Nor or they afraid of being wrong. The best thing any parent or teacher can do is to ensure that the child keeps alive this intuitive ability to connect the dots.
How do we do this? Not very difficult really. Just keep asking “How else can we do this or what else can we try?” And just listen with an open mind. If the child finds that you are keen to explore possibilities and are not laughing at any of the options (because it might seem childish or foolish), she will voluntarily share a lot more interesting stuff.
(*Reposted, with permission, from the ParentEdge blog (www.parentedge.in). ParentEdge is a parenting magazine that aims to expose parents to global trends in learning and partner with them in the intellectual enrichment of their children. Original post by Sridhar Ramanathan.)
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And like I always believe in and say:
'Heal the world we live in
Save it for our children' - MJ
Happy Parenting!!!!
Be good to your little one, and to the millions of little ones out there who truly need every bit of love and compassion they can get.....Be a grown up...save the little ones.... Debolina Raja Gupta
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