She: Amma, I’m worried about my health..

Me: Why buddy?

She: I like chocolates so much that I’m worried I’ll eat too many of them and spoil my health..

Me: Oh, I understand. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll help you to not eat so many chocolates so that you can stay healthy

She: But I’m still worried because I like chocolates so much…

Me: Why do you worry when I’m here to take care of you…

She: Ok. I won’t worry. Amma, I feel like eating chocolates. Can I have some?

Me: You had chocolates just yesterday, buddy. I don’t think you should have anymore for another week.

She: But amma, I told you I like chocolates a lot.

Me: But I thought that you were also worried about eating too many chocolates and spoiling your health.

She: I’m not worried anymore. Can I have some?

Me: But I’m worried. And I just told you that I’m here to take care of your health in case you need help..

She: (starts laughing at her own blunder…) Amma, please just a little bit..

Me: (also laughing). No buddy, too many chocolates is not good for your health….

(Thinking to myself – I guess I won the battle this time. But who knows what she’ll come up with next…need to watch out…)

A love so unconditional that you wonder whether it is possible…

Innocence so natural that you long for it every moment of the day…

And an expectation that doesn’t exist, which makes you feel the freedom that you’ve always longed for.

This is motherhood that I never thought was possible…

This is motherhood that I experienced every moment of the day today….

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 .

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 .

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.

In the US, many children get almost three months off from school during summer. I read a statistic recently which said that counting all the vacations, holidays, weekends and the number of hours in a school day, children in America spend only 14% of their time in the year attending school. They spend close to 33% of their time sleeping and the rest 53% at their home and communities. This statistic made me wonder about what I could do to help my daughter be in touch with some of her schoolwork during summer. Going back to school for first grade in September and realizing that she has forgotten many concepts that were fragile in her mind and having to re-learn all of them again would not be a good thing, not just for her academic progress but also for her self-esteem.

Montessori children spend a large part of their school day doing “real” work and practicing their academic skills. As a result, most children in the lower grades don’t get any home work from school. Moreover, Montessori children learn many concepts through real life experiences and play. Hence I knew that it was imperative to use every day life experiences and play to enrich her learning during summer, so that her joy of learning is not compromised. At the same time, I also knew that there were some things that she needed to learn which can only be done through repetition and practice. For example, in order to progress in math, it is very important that the basic math skills and operations become second nature for her. For this, she needs to develop mental math skills. As she starts to write more elaborate stories and experiences in her journals, her handwriting needs to become more refined. She is a prolific reader, but it is also important to make sure that she is comprehending more and more of what she reads and building her vocabulary by understanding the meaning words that she reads.

My daughter loves to learn new things, be it  a new sport, new song, new concept about the world around her – you name it and she will have a million different questions about the things around her. But if it was left to herself she’ll probably not spend time practicing and refining some of the skills that she has newly learned. Her teacher had informed me that her favorite thing is to try new things. She would rather not spend time repeating what she had already worked on.

So, my thinking was that I should help her realize the value of practice and the importance of learning something really well, when it comes to academic skills. I popped the question to her about spending an hour a day during the summer doing “homework”. She knows what “homework” is – it means doing school work at home. To my surprise, she was thrilled with the idea. So, on the last day of her school, we visited a store nearby which sells many curriculum materials to schools in our area. We browsed the shop and I let her choose journals, workbooks and hands-on math materials that she could work on during summer.

The next day (yesterday) I marked a few pages in the different workbooks and journals that she could work on. She seemed very proud to be working on these. She wouldn’t move on to anything else until she finished her “homework”.  Today, before I could come back from the gym in the morning, she had woken up, picked up her journals and workbooks, chosen her homework and started to work on them. When I went to talk to her in her room, she even complained that I was “disturbing her” and not allowing her to “concentrate” on her work.

I’m not certain how long this motivation to do her “homework” regularly will continue. I’m sure that as the summer progresses, I’ll have to find ways to re-motivate her. As is the case with her fascination to try new things, this many be just one of her new fads which may wear off after a little while. But so far, I’m very happy with how happy she is, to be doing her “homework”.

While the documentary doesn’t make any conclusions at the end, it  seems to drive home a message that students in India and China are spending their time more fruitfully. It seems to say that compared to Americans, Indian and Chinese students seem to be  more serious about careers in math and science and are hence better off. It seems to conclude that America is not doing enough to compete with the rest of the world in the areas of math and science.

Ok, I agree that given what I know about education in USA,  the country can do better in preparing it’s students for math and science careers. But given what I know about education in India, I strongly feel that there is absolutely no need to put the Indian education system on a pedestal and say that it is better than the US education system. How much time the students spend on academics and whether they chose a career in math and science is not the only measure of a successful education system. An education system should be measured with many more outcomes – how well-rounded the students are, whether they are able to critically think about issues and make decisions, whether they are able to problem solve, able to think out of the box, whether they are confident, compassionate, responsible and so on.

First of all, I would like to note that I’m very passionate about developments in both India and America. I am a first generation Indian American who lives in America currently and who has plans of living in India in the future. I received an engineering degree in India and after a Masters and a ten year career in the engineering field, changed my career to one in Education after getting a Masters degree in this field. While my daughter is currently getting a K-12 US education, she will in all probability continue her education in India in the future. Given this background , I would like to think of my opinions on both these education systems to be quite objective.

Given what I know about both US and Indian K-12 education systems, if I was given a free choice without any other constraints to choose between these two systems for my daughter, I would any day go for the US education system. Following are the reasons why:

Firstly, I feel that my daughter will have a better environment in the US to explore her interests and pursue a career inline with her interests. She will have an opportunity to explore many options other than math and science – humanities, arts, sports and what not. She will even get opportunities to be competent in more than one field. I know that in India, unless parents work hard to swim against the tide, the society and the environment will put enormous pressure on the children to pursue a career in science and math even if the children are not interested in these careers.

I feel that even if my daughter decides to pursue a career in math/science after doing K-12 education in America, it will be out of her own interest. There is a huge difference in outcomes when someone pursues a career out of passion as opposed to when someone pursues a career because she was pressured to do so. Research studies have shown that people perform at their peak when they are pursuing something out of their own interest.

And secondly, there is the question of how well-rounded my daughter will be if she does K-12 in the U.S. My daughter will grow up in an environment where creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork etc are encouraged in a non-competitive environment. Research studies have shown that these skills are critical to success as an individual. I also feel that these skills are critical for a successful democratic process in a country. There is a reason why the American democracy is as sophisticated as it is today. If the Indian democracy has to reach this level of sophistication, it is crucial to instill these skills in it’s citizens. Research studies have also shown that a non-competitive environment is crucial for developing competencies at their best. The K-12 education environment in India is extremely competitive which puts a lot of pressure on the children to be the best, which in turn could bring-down their performance.

Apart from these academic skills, I also feel that my daughter would have a much better chance of growing up to be a social-minded, compassionate, confident and responsible individual if she completed her education in USA.

While the documentary “Two million minutes” has made a good attempt to bolster the importance of math and science education in K-12 schools in America, people should not confuse this attempt to mean that the Indian education system is better than US or that US education system is inferior to Indian and Chinese education systems in all respects. All these education systems have a long way to go and success cannot be measured on one dimension alone.

Any thoughts?

I’ve noted down below some basic rules that I follow in order to make museum visits as effective as possible. The rules are as follows: Plan before, Give Freedom, Ask Questions, Be Generous, Find connections, Follow-up. More details are given below.

Plan before:

This is the first rule of thumb. A little planning on what you will do at the museum, goes a long way in making the visit as enjoyable and effective as possible. And what is more important is to involve the children in the planning. This makes the children feel empowered and in control of the visit.

If it is a museum that we have been to many times, I ask my daughter as to which exhibits she would want to see that day . She usually lists some of the exhibits that she has already been to and enjoyed in the past. Visiting the same exhibits multiple times is a good thing. There is always something new to learn within the same exhibit.

I also find out if there are any new exhibits that have come up recently or if there is anything new in the museum  related to what she is learning at school or is reading about. Telling her about any such exhibits immediately sparks an interest in her and she looks forward to seeing them with a sense of anticipation.

If we are visiting a museum for the first time, we browse the website of the museum together and check out the various exhibits that we can expect to find there. We talk about them a little and  she makes her preferences known about what she wants to see.

Give Freedom:

While in the museum, give the child a lot of freedom and choice.

I usually have my daughter lead me through the exhibits. If she is not sure about where to go, we talk about the different choices and options using the brochures, and I have her choose from them.   Again, this makes her feel a sense of ownership about her own interests.

I feel that a large part of our job as adults would be to find out what engages the children in the museums. A child may be interested in some topics more than others and hence may tend to engage in exhibits related to them more. Other times, some exhibits are way beyond the child’s level of understanding of the concept (in short it may not fall under their Zone of Proximal Development).

As adults, we need to trust them to know what they want to learn, even if the children don’t explicitly spell it out.

Ask Questions:

The key to effective learning in museums is encouraging the children to critically think about what they are seeing and also ask as many good questions as possible to the adults around them.

Exhibits in some museums are very interactive. I usually let my daughter try experiencing the exhibit on her own. If she is having trouble with it, I help her out. During the course of the experience, I ask her questions related to what, why, when, where and how of whatever is happening in front of her at the exhibit. If she is not able to comprehend it, I try asking the question in different ways before I give her the answer.

One of the ways I encourage her to ask questions is to lead her to a docent near the exhibit. I start asking the docent questions of my own. This way I can role model to her to ask any questions she may have. Once I ask the docent a couple of questions of my own, I usually turn to my daughter and ask her whether she has any questions of her own. Most of the times she has some question or the other that she asks the docent.

Many museums, especially art museums have several non-interactive exhibits. One effective method that I use to make art museums interactive for my daughter is to ask her questions about the pictures that she is seeing. What do you see, what do you think the girl is doing in the picture, why is she doing it, what do u think is happening in the background, do you like the colors in the picture, why and so on. These questions help her engage in the exhibits much better.

Be generous:

Be generous with time at each exhibit. Give children the time to explore each exhibit as much as they would like. Remember the biggest reason for the visit to the museum – so that the children enjoy and learn. And if they are enjoying the experience at one exhibit, why put an end to it.

It’s better to have them explore one exhibit thoroughly instead of breezing through many exhibits for short periods of time.  Exploring something thoroughly is when the deepest learning happens.

Find connections:

Try to find connections in the exhibits to what the child may be doing or reading at his/her school or at home. If you don’t know whether there is a connection, ask the child whether she already knows anything about what she is seeing. If the answer is yes, ask her what she has learned about it.

Sometimes, these connections can be found at the periphery of the exhibit. For example, when we visited a Frog exhibit at a science museum recently, we were treated to sights of many different varieties of live frogs, found in many different parts of the world. As we were enjoying these, outside each glass case, I found a map of the continent where that particular variety of frog was found.  Since I knew that my daughter was studying the different countries within each continents, we spent some time looking at each map to identify the countries where the frogs were found.

Follow-up:

To maximize the effectiveness of the museum visit, try and follow-up with some activities at home soon after the museum visit. I usually try and get some books from the library related to what we experienced at the museum. If you can find any activity kits at the museum store related to your child’s experiences and if you are in a mood to buy something for your child, that’s another option.

The above are just some of the rules that one could follow, based on my experiences with my daughter. I would love to know if there are others based on your experiences.

I would like to bring out two important points from this anecdote.
First, the joy and benefits of reading a book is so different from watching a theater performance or a movie. While I don’t mean to discount the merits of watching these performances on stage or on a movie screen, I want to specially emphasize the merits of reading a book here. This is because, performances – especially movies- engage any child instantaneously and there is no special effort that needs to be expended in order to motivate children to watch movies. But it is not the same for books. Getting children interested in reading books – especially the classics – takes a quite a bit of effort.
Most movies or stage performances based on popular books interpret the books in their own way and present it to the audience. This leaves little scope for the children to critically think about the stories presented to them on stage or in the movies. Whereas, a good book offers lots of opportunities for critical thinking. Moreover, by not having a live visual to comprehend what the book is talking about, the children have to entirely rely on the language in the book in order to understand the plot or characterizations. This automatically increases the language processing capabilities in children.

Second, I would also like to point out some interesting findings from research studies in the context of the anecdote that I described above. Research studies show that “getting children interested in reading is even more important to their eventual success as readers than in helping them with early reading skills”. And research studies have also shown that enticing a child to do something that you want using the promise of rewards will eventually lead to reduced interest for the activity in the child. So, for example, I could have offered her some sort of a extrinsic motivation or a reward for continuing to read the book after we attended the stage performance. I could have said – “Since I’m going to return the book back to the library soon and we don’t know when we can get it back, lets finish the book” or “How about we finish reading the book and you can have a treat then”. All this would have done was to transfer her focus from the book to either returning it to the library asap or dreaming of the treat that she could have after she finishes reading. Eventually, this would have reduced her interest in the book itself. Luckily I didn’t use either of these extrinsic motivators. Since I had an answer ready, I used it to tap her inner motivation to read the book and it worked like a charm!! This doesn’t mean to say that I can be such a “genius” every time I’m faced with such a situation. There have been many instances when I have regretted my responses to her negotiating questions. But I do believe in the importance of persevering and practicing this skill and I am only getting better at it.

Montessori education incorporates both these principles – following the child’s interests and not using extrinsic rewards . Dr. Montessori believed that a child’s personal interests could be connected to every part of the academic curriculum and, that the hands-on materials that she provided as a part of the curriculum could be designed in such a way that they evoked interest for them in a child. Dr. Montessori also strived very hard to design the curriculum and pedagogies in such a way that all extrinsic rewards like grades, toys etc were removed from the child’s environment. She found that when children engaged themselves in the Montessori classroom, they didn’t need to be offered these rewards in order to do the work. They engaged in their work naturally.

I’m sure my daughter’s Montessori school has played a big role in keeping many of her interests active – reading being one of them. But I also do believe that the parents at home shouldn’t heavily conflict with these philosophies, so that the child’s interests stay alive and active!!