by Lisa
(cross posted from my site because I think it's important)
Yeah- I am not the one climbing a mountain, although I absolutely love hiking. However, the image of climbing a mountain can bring about all sorts of deep thoughts about the value of laboring for a goal and taking small steps and having faith that there is a top to the mountain and bla bla bla whatever- I am sure mountain climbing is an analogy you're familiar with on all sorts of levels. (did you know in early pregnancy, you burn more calories per hour when you're sound asleep than a mountain climber does… climbing)
Anyhow, so last night I'm listening to a speech from Writer and History Curriculum developer Diana Waring about the upcoming WATCH Conference when she starts a story about an insight she had while huffing and puffing up a hiking trail climbing a mountain. And it had nothing do do with a mountain, except in a deep metaphorical sense.
Imagine a little child sitting at the table, saying "Mom, I'm hungry" and his mother says "Would you like a steak?" And the child says "Oh yummy- I love steak" and his mother says "And would you like some corn with that?" and the little boy says "Oh yes, please- I love corn" and his mother says "And how about some baked potatoes?" And of course, the little boys says "YES- I love baked potatoes."
So the mother, goes into the kitchen and brings out a platter with a huge 50 ounce steak on it, 12 ears of corn and ten pounds of baked potatoes and sits it down in front of the little boy.
Then, she says "You're not getting up until you're finished."
Do you think that little boy will ever want another steak in his life? Don't you think his stomach will wretch at the sight of an ear of corn or a potato for maybe just the rest of his life. She has completely ruined Steak and potatoes for him. Not that it's a nutritious meal anyways, but still. The point is, by over-indulging him and forcing him to digest it all at once, she has ruined his inclination to enjoy that particular meal.
Imagine instead, if she had placed 2-3 ounces of steak, 1/2 a baked potato and half a cob of corn on his plate. Just the right amount of food for a little boy (as if I know anything about boys) and not so much that he gets sick at the idea of having that meal again. His immediate hunger is quenched. Next time he sees a steak, he'll have a pleasant reaction, his mouth will water.
Isn't learning similar? I can't even think of how many times I have told my children "You're not getting up until your math is done." With my oldest child, when I was more of an unschooler, I'd peek at the lesson at hand and organically demonstrate the principles of it in real life. So she's learning the topic in a way that's relevant, and led by her interests. That's not so hard to do. In fact, if a topic is worthy of study then by default, it should be easy to blend it into life.
As obsessed as I've been with math in my house for the past year, I know I've stolen the passion from at least one of my kids. She's still small enough to reclaim it, though. And I'm making that my goal today. She loves graphing and measuring gardening and cooking. So today, we're putting the math books on a shelf and measuring volume, temperature and displacement of mass baking cookies. When we serve them at our tea party, we'll cut them into fractions bite sized pieces. We'll make a scaled diagram drawing of our flowerbeds to go into our little "scrapbook of home" that's easing the moving stress from the littler ones (and me)
How Diana was able to divine that steak analogy while hiking amuses me, though. I can relate completely; when my body is fully engaged in hiking or lawn mowing, my brain seems to go into deep thought mode, and there's always some sort of epiphany that comes from just letting the wheels turn aimlessly. Perhaps that's why playing is so important for children. That's another entry entirely, though and I, for one, have a tea party to attend to. Toodle-doo
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Awesome, awesome post! Thanks for sharing it! I really needed to hear this. It is so easy to get into panic mode and try to cram too much in.
Thank you for this…I often have to stop myself from trying to make everything a "learning" experience and realize that just in the doing, they are learning. I don't have to point out every detail and try and get them to commit it to memory!
Such an incredibly insightful article. Thanks for the reminder!
I love the analogy and sometimes find that we feast and famine ourselves. September is an especially dangerous time. We are eccletic homeschoolers who mix and match what we study and how we study it, but I agree that learning in real life situations are more memoriable. I have a personal philosophy that all subjects can be routed around anyones passion. I believe it is better to instill a love of learning in a child rather than teach them any one thing.