....what they want to be.
That’s what we should be doing. Teaching them to fly and then letting them free to go explore, build their own nests, and fight their own battles.
But as my chicks are trying out their new wings I am not sure how well I’ll be able to do that.
My 10-year-old says that she shouldn’t be spending too much time on her studies because anyway she is going to be a fashion designer, or an actress, or a dancer. (The logic-they are fun, you get famous and you don’t need to study).
I cannot find the words to cheer her on-so I resort to my Loverna-like manipulations. Introduce her to more interesting ways to study, tweak her selection of books at the library, and try to get her to explore more options by enrolling her in a Robotics class.
This, she enjoyed. It was not like regular school. They got to watch videos, work hands on with building and programming robots, and as a final workshop, even design and build a robot of their own choice.
They called the parents to see the final presentations and it was really impressive. There was robot for picking up debris. One racing car robot which had sensors to stop it from crashing. There was one which had a pencil attached to follow simple writing instructions (has the potential to be developed into a homework tool).
And here is Elena’s robot.
She is a ballerina, designed to take perfect pirouettes.
Well, technology is also fun, but she can get distracted only to this extent.
Woww! I wud like to borrow/buy one or more of those :P
ReplyDeleteGod! They do hv logical reasons for why they do not want to study ;)
LOL! Mine wants to be a princess :( No matter what I do to distract her :( Once a doctor offered her a stethoscope to try on. She was delighted! She tried it on all of us, pretended to be a doctor. The doctor, expecting to hear that she would want to be a 'doc' asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and back came the reply ' A Princess' :)
ReplyDeleteRobotics class sounds so interesting! I feel like attending one myself :)
Swaram: Yes that's the problem. I want to avoid resorting to "you have to study because you have to" kind of logic, but find it hard to find convincing reasons all the time. At that age-I too felt the same.
ReplyDeleteSmitha: Wow what determination!
Guess Engineers and Doctors belong to the last century now.
Robotics was fun and good learning too. But I was zapped by the Ballerina robot. No pt. asking why we wud need a robot for dancing. It was what she wanted to make.
I still cant stop laughing at Elena's reasoning for not studying :D!
ReplyDeleteThe robotic classes sound quite interesting and fun. Elena's Ballerina Robot amazes me..what an imagination!
Deeps it's not so funny when I have to argue with her for an hour everyday to make her study for half-an hour :(
ReplyDelete