A core memory of mine was learning a cool math trick in school and coming home to tell my dad about it. He very coldly told me he didn’t find the trick impressive because he already knows math. That was the last time I ever came home excited from school.
“A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?”
- Stephen Colbert
Damn, sorry. This is why it’s important!
What’s great with this, is that eventually they WILL tell you facts you DIDN’T know, which is an amazing feeling.
I’m a teacher in training and in my internship this year I’m teaching first years (12 years old in my country). It’s actually so funny and interesting to me that they often ask me questions from a perspective I would’ve never thought about, just because they’re working with novel and limited information. I didn’t experience that at all when teaching year 3 or year 5 because they’re less of a ‘clean slate’.
Excuse my ignorance but, first years of what? Like school ever? 12 seems pretty late to start, if that’s the case what does their life and education look like before then?
I really love what you take away from that experience though. It’s amazing because we really are always learning, and anyone can teach us something. If you remember any of them and feel like sharing I’d be curious to hear them!
I want this.
My 10 year old son loves dinosaurs and space. He reads and watches tons of stuff, and is now telling me about Dinosaur species I’m not familiar with, and facts about various moons/planets/etc. I’m pretty well read on these subjects too.
I absolutely love it.
I grew up thinking we knew everything there is to know about dinosaurs. Then I had a kid, who started to learn all about them. So far he’s told me about how scientists think many of them had features, how Brontosauruses didn’t exist, how there are multiple T-Rex species, and more. The pace of scientific development is crazy, and he keeps up with a lot of it for also being ten. I love to hear about it.
Not exactly related to what you said, but what you said made me think about it. Dinos are cool.
Definitely recommend this book:
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World
by Steve Brusatte
One thing that helps more than just looking surprised: ask the kid for further details. If it is something you know, you can catch anything they got wrong and ask “is it really like that? i thought it was different!” (keeping your tone in mind is essential, too)
If it’s something you don’t know, they’ll be more than glad to explain. Which can get tiring, but hey, it’s a small price for getting them interested in learning and sharing their knowledge
This, especially asking them why they think it is that way or how they can test it. Get them thinking in terms of the scientific method instead of just repeating facts they heard somewhere else. edit: asking them to repeat random facts about a topic is still a great way to keep them interested and feeling good about their knowledge, but asking them “why” questions is really next-level and can be really interesting to see what they come up with
Thus encouraging them to share information they find important with people
And not telling them that once they’re not small and cute anymore, nobody gives a shit.
The trick is to hang around people who do give a shit.
I love encouraging children to learn.
I use these moments to discuss that topic and dive a little bit deeper into it. If a child is interested enough to share something, then perhaps the sharing can go both ways. As long as we stay within the same topic, the child is usually willing to learn as well.
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