Identifying passions and teaching the value of hard work July 31, 2009

The past few weeks, I’ve read two books – “The Element” by Ken Robinson and “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. Reading these books have raked up many conflicts in my mind about parenting and education.

Ken Robinson in his book talks passionately about finding one’s true passion – whether it is in math, science, history, business, music, art or sports, whatever it maybe. His book is filled with examples of how people who have identified their true passion and pursued them with hard work and determination lead meaningful lives. The book ends with a call for educators and policy makers all over the world to  reform education in a way that children get to explore a variety of interests and identify their true passions. Every child is born and nurtured differently and may not be equally passionate about the popular subjects (like math and science) that the schools teach. Yet, most education systems all over the world, through their rigorous assessment methods, test all children on a narrow set of skills and tag every child with a label called “intelligent” or not.

As a parent, there is nothing more satisfying for me than to raise a child who will not only make meaningful contributions to the society but will also lead a life which will be meaningful to herself. These two things definitely go hand-in-hand because only if work is meaningful to someone will the person be able to make a meaningful contributions to the society. And work can be meaningful only if you are passionate about what you are doing.But this book left more questions in my mind than answers to previous ones.

How does a parent figure out this true passion in a child? What if I completely miss it, given the many many different spheres of influences that a child experiences in her life? A child may say, she is interested in something and a parent can provide the opportunities. What does it mean if the child loses interest in that activity at a later time? What do I make out of it?  Sometimes, a child may become passionate about something only after being exposed to a skill deeply. Until then, the passion may be buried somewhere else. How do I figure out as to which area of interest the child should pursue in depth ? As a parent, am I thinking too much about these issues? Can I leave it all to chance or should I do my due diligence? And how do I do my due diligence in a way not to pressure my child too much?

Wait! My thought process doesn’t end there. It has become even more complex after I’ve read Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers”.

Gladwell focuses on how demographic advantages, unexpected opportunities, hardwork and ethnic cultures play a big role in achieving something big. He gives examples of many outliers like The Beatles, Bill Gates, the big lawyers in New York City. He even talks about Chinese as a society, who have achieved deep expertise in math that other societies haven’t and why it is so. Most of us parents don’t set out to make our children become outliers. Apart from the priority of their leading meaningful lives, one of the topmost priorities on our minds is to make sure that our children would grow up to be economically self-sufficient.  The lessons that Gladwell imparts in his book would hold good not just for outliers but even to lead a reasonably “successful” life. In today’s world, you would still need demographic advantages and the right opportunities in order to be economically self-sufficient. You only have to look around at a person graduating from college when his/her country is in deep recession to know the value of “demographic advantages” and “opportunities”. And we as parents know all too well about the importance of “hard work”. Gladwell, in his book, talks about how it takes 10,000 hours of practice in total (which usually amounts to 10 years of time) in order to become an expert in any skill. This 10,000 hour rule is not a new concept and has been referred to many times within the realm of scientific research in the field of education.

As a parent, again I’m having a hard time coming to grips with how to have my child understand the value of hard work. The struggle is more to do with having my daughter understand the value of hard work without taking away the “joy of learning” in her. The rule of thumb in the field of education is that if a child is interested and motivated to learn something, the child will work on practicing that skill automatically. Yes, I agree but it is not as simple, is it? For, as the tasks start to become tougher, the natural human tendency is to give it up. This is where the value of “hard work” kicks in. But the more I push my daughter to pursue a skill through “practice”, the more I’m nervous that it may backfire. I’ve had some reasonable amounts of success balancing my urge to have her practice a skill and still retain the “joy of learning” in her. But sometimes I feel this balance slipping away right in front of my eyes and all I can do is throw up my arms in frustration (thankfully, not in front of her).

I guess if the child is “wildly passionate” (as opposed to just being “interested”) about something he/she would be lot more inclined to work hard. I know that some children, begin to exhibit their deep passions at an early age. But many children don’t and I feel that these conflicts that I’ve described are more relevant in these situations.

I want to close this window to my web of conflicts with a final set of questions . As an adult, it is a matter of balancing two things – pursuing one’s passion and at the same time, finding ways to be economically self-sufficient. What if your passion doesn’t fit in well with economic realities of the time that you live in? How do I make sure that my child is able to achieve this balance between these two things, when she grows up to be an adult? The first thing I can think of is that she should definitely have opportunities to pursue a variety of interests so that she develops competency in a range of skills that will help her find meaningful careers. Now, the conflicts in my mind have just multiplied. Identify multiple interests and motivate her to work hard on all of them? This is a full-time job. I’m definitely passionate about parenting but I’m not sure that this will lead me to economic self-sufficiency .

Natural growth versus Concerted cultivation July 28, 2009

I’ve been reading the book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. In one of the chapters, he contrasts two parenting philosophies – natural growth v/s concerted cultivation.

Research has shown that some parents follow the philosophy of natural growth. They think of their responsibility for their children as one where they have to care for their children but let them grow and develop on their own. They are not involved in intensive scheduling in the lives of their children. These children spend a large amount of their time making up games on their own with other kids. The second kind of philosophy is of concerted cultivation. Here the parents are heavily involved in their children’s free time, shuttling them from one activity to the next, quizzing them about their teachers and coaches and peers. The parents also talk things through with their children, reasoning with them.

Gladwell talks about how research says that there is nothing to show that one philosophy is better than the other. The children who experience the natural growth philosophy are more often than not, better behaved, less whiny, more creative in making use of their own time and have a well-developed sense of independence. Where as the children who are heavily scheduled and experience the concerted cultivation philosophy are exposed to a constantly shifting set of experiences. They learn teamwork and how to cope in highly structured settings. Depending on the different environments that they are exposed to, they are taught how to interact comfortably with adults and to speak up when they need to.

With my daughter, I’ve found that I feel the urge to strike a balance between both these philosophies. Since she attends a Montessori school, I feel pretty comfortable that she is getting the freedom to explore her personal interests and hence experience natural growth,  for a significant amount of time within the school setting. At the same time, the structure within the Montessori environment, gives her a good space to  collaborate with her peers on different tasks, interact with the adults to express her needs and pursue academic activities – in short, experience concerted cultivation. She gets off school at 3.00 p.m every day. After school hours, I do take her for after-school classes at least 3 days in a week during the school year. These are pretty structured settings where she has to learn/practice new skills. Alternatively, we also have playdates with other kids quite often where she usually has an unstrcutured setting. At home, again we have a mix of both – unstructured time and structured activities.

I still remember what my professor at my graduate school (of Education) once said – “Children need to get used to boredom”.  When they grow up to be adults, they need to be able to figure out how to make use of their own time. They need to be able to independently figure out their interests and pursue them. What my professor said really struck a chord in me. Since then, I’ve tried to control my urge to engage her in too many structured activities. Even then, I find that my daughter comes to me once in a while and says, – “Now, what do I do? How do I spend my time now?”. I find myself struggling to give her an answer. Sometimes, I try and find an activity that she can do. But most times, her asking me that question is an indication for me that she hasn’t learnt to manage her time on her own . Hence I shoo her off to find something to do. After all, mommies need their own time too – especially time for reading . The best times are when, she decides that she wants to read a book sitting next to her dear mommy. Those are the times when I feel that all my dreams have come true. Mother and daughter sitting cuddled next to each other and reading their own books while the whole world passes by .

A lesson in courage and perseverance July 6, 2009

We had been eagerly waiting for our road trip in Colorado and Utah for many months. After we landed in Denver, Colorado, we spent our first day of the road trip at the Rocky Mountain National Park. My daughter had displayed amazing patience on the previous day, at the airports and in the airplane, on our way to Denver. Our frequent travels has molded her into a patient traveler. Her only whimper had come when we had finally landed in Denver and she had found out that our hotel was still an hours worth of drive away from the airport.

On our first day at the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), we were looking forward to indulging in pristine nature, watching the beautiful scenic views, hiking among wildflowers, watching the wild animals and trying to spot the beautiful birds among the trees. We definitely got to do all of this and much more.

As we started our first hike, I knew that this was not going to be easy for my daughter . It was a 5 mile, moderately difficult hike. But I thought that this was an opportunity to not only be a little adventurous but also to teach her some perseverance. I knew that she would start complaining as we hiked further into the trail. The first 1.5 miles of the hike was beautiful. She hardly stuck to the hiking trail. She hiked most of the first 1.5 miles by jumping from one rock to the other and watching the least-chipmunks and the marmots play games with their friends. But complain, she definitely did after that . For a while, her complaints sounded very artificial and it was very easy for me to keep her going by telling her about how she could do anything if she just made up her mind.

But finally, the moment she was waiting for, arrived , when she tripped on a rock and fell flat on the ground, hurting her knee – giving her the perfect excuse to turn back home. It’s a wonder that there were no landslides on the rocky mountains, considering the shrill cry that she let out during the next 5 minuntes . I managed to calm her down. Stories from my childhood when I had nasty falls, seemed to convince her that her wounds had nowhere else to go but be cured. She actually started to trudge along the trail again giving her best shot. By now, we were a couple of miles into the hiking trail. But luck was definitely on her side as dark clouds started to kick in and it started to drizzle. We had not prepared ourselves for rain had to hike the 2 miles back to our car in pouring rain. We finally, reached our car about an hour later, thoroughly drenched and with no hope of changing into dry clothes because there were none. The temperature had dropped to upper 50s and we were shivering. The next couple of hours were spent drying ourselves and feeding our hungry stomachs. I think that a lesson in courage and perseverance in the face of bad weather and a persistent mother respectively, had already unraveled for my daughter that day.

What she hadn’t expected was the threat of another hike – a shorter 2 mile hike this time. She initially resisted it but knew that it was in vain. It turned out to a easy hike this time in spite of her “why do we have to hike so much in one day” complaints. But what we encountered during the hike blew us all away – a big black bear, right in the middle of our trail. Luckily, we had some smart fellow hikers who knew what to do when a big bear is staring right at you. As one of these hikers started shouting at the bear, the bear decided that the best thing to do was to turn his back on us and carry on with his life.

The bear encounter, however, was enough to leave a lasting impression on my daughter. The remainder of the day was dedicated to talking to her about whether bears attack humans and what can be done when that happens. The inexperienced ‘bear’ person that I am, I had very few answers to her questions but managed to appear courageous. As for my daughter she came back to the hotel and journaled her fears away by writing about it.

It had been an eventful day for my daughter. She had a couple of lessons each on both courage and persevence. As for me, my horizons on experiences related to raising my child had only widened.