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 .

Homework for summer June 12, 2009

Summer is a time to enjoy time off from school and nourish the soul with life-enriching experiences. It is a time to spend more time with family and friends than at school, more time outdoors than indoors, more time amidst nature than disconnected from it. I have been looking forward to spending long, bright summer days with my daughter.

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”.

Rules of engagement in a museum May 9, 2009

My daughter and I visit many different kinds of museums regularly. Museums are not only great places where families can spend enjoyable time together, they are also spaces where a lot of informal learning occurs for both children and adults.

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.

Sour mood days April 5, 2009

I usually know immediately when I’m having one of those ‘sour mood’ days because as soon as my mood turns sour, I tell myself – “watch what you do or say now, don’t let this affect others around you”. Nothing else matters to me more during my sour mood than how I react to Anusha . For, my sour mood chooses to demonstrate itself at the most unacceptable moments of all – when I’m having some of my most precious moments with her.

The other day, my sour mood decides to show up during her violin practice. It has already required some convincing on my part that day for her to start practicing. By the time she starts I am already thinking – ‘how many more years will it be by the time she starts practicing on her own? I don’t know whether I can go on like this for any longer…’

Her teacher has assigned her a new song – ‘Bourree’ by G.F.Handel. It’s a beautiful piece and we both love the song. She has heard this song play on a CD many times and knows the tune in her heart. Left to herself and her awesome auditory skills, she’ll probably figure out the notes to play on the violin without even looking at the written music. But the goal that her teacher has set is for her to learn to play while reading the music in her book. She knows how to read music but not very fluently. She wants to succumb to her human nature and take the easy way out – play to the sound of it rather than the look of it. The only thing that is in her way today is her mother – looking quite dangerous in her sour mood.

Before she starts to play she looks at my face and realizes that things may become quite grim today. So, she says,
“Amma, you’ve promised me that you’ll not shout at me”
“I know sweetie pie. And you’ve promised me that you’re going to try your best, right”, I say.
“Yes, Amma”. But she is not convinced – by both our promises to each other. I can see it in her eyes.

She first practices some warm-up songs and some older lessons. As we turn the page to the “Bourree” and she plays the first note, she is aware of my keen eyes trying to track the notes in her music book. I can just feel it – instead of focusing on the music, she is focusing on when I’m going to say something to her. I now close my eyes and try my best to hear some music but all I can hear is noise. I tell myself to calm down my anger and she tries to calm down her tears. We both succeed this time.

We decide to try our parts again – playing the music in the book and be an encouraging parent respectively. I close my eyes again and still hear only noise. I give up trying to calm myself down and say in a loud voice -
“Why aren’t you using your brain a little – think and play”.
I’m also a little frustrated with her posture. I adjust her violin so that the shoulder rest on the violin sits firmly on her shoulder, but I wish I could have been more gentle when I did that.

By now, she is in tears and that irritates me even more.
I say to her condescendingly, “How many times have I told you that it is okay to make a mistake but not okay if you don’t try?”
“Amma, you promised me that you are not going to shout”, she says softly.
“Yes, I promised. But you promised me that you’re going to try”, I say.

She now decides that she is better off focusing on her music. We continue to dig through the music. I’m now focusing on toning down my voice and temper. We get through the practice without any more outbursts, especially from my side. But this practice session has left both of us exhausted. I’m not only exhausted but quite unhappy with myself. Why in the world could I not control myself? Is that too much to ask? I know what such kind of pressure can do to a child’s love for learning. Forget love for learning, I’m not even sure whether she learnt anything today. I usually forget most of the things that I learn under external pressure.

I walk to my room, cover my head in a pillow and question myself about my behavior. Somewhere in the middle of my thoughts, I realize that I have more important things to do. I walk back to Anusha’s room and hug her.
“I’m sorry sweetie pie”, I say, “I have been in a horrible mood today. But that is still not a good excuse for what I did. I know that you’re trying your best while practicing your music”
“I’m sorry Amma, because I don’t think I tried hard at the beginning”, she says.
“I think that you’re doing a great job”, I say to her. “It is me, I shouldn’t be so hard on you. Can you tell me one thing? Do you think you’re losing your love for music because I shout at you sometimes when you’re practicing?”.
Her answer to that question amazes me, “I enjoy everything that I do with you Amma, because I love you so much”.

We then discuss various ways other ways she could practice music. I try to convince her that she doesn’t really need me around when she is practicing. She could do it on her own and call me only when she needs me to clarify something for her. She doesn’t seem so convinced with this idea but she nods her head in agreement. We then hug each other again and I think to myself again – “I hope that day arrives when she starts practicing on her own”.
It’s not that I don’t normally enjoy being with her when she is practicing. But she is such an independent learner in most of the other things she does daily. And I’m hoping that her independent-mindedness will extend soon to her music too.

The music of childhood October 2, 2007

I picked her up from school and we came home. It had been a long day at work though I had spent only five hours there. Seeing her face eased my tensions a little. We settled down at home – she had her snack and her usual quota of TV, during which time I finished cooking dinner. I thought about the next couple of hours when I would spend time playing with her. She had been going for piano lessons during the past 8 months and I wondered how I could convince her to squeeze in about 10 minutes of piano lesson practice – I mean, real practice and not just playing around with the keyboard. She was falling behind some compared to her peers in the class but her teacher had assured me that she was doing quite fine considering that she was at least a year younger then the rest of the class. However, knowing how she always played with the keyboard during practice sessions, it was obvious that she would lag behind further if something didn’t change. Most of all, I was concerned that she would get upset that she was not able to play as well as her peers. After all she is only four years old. At that age, it is normal to get upset without realizing that you yourself are responsible for it.
I heard her calling me from her room. She said, she wanted to practice her piano lessons. I didn’t “trust” what she said, but we sat down anyway. To my surprise, she turned the page to the song which she was having trouble with – “ The Little Birch Tree”. She started playing it and went back and forth between the lines she could play well and the ones she couldn’t. I was quite impressed with her perseverance to get the song right and commented that she was doing well. She said, “Amma, I want to learn this song so that I don’t fall behind in class”. Knowing this was something I had said to her before, I thought that she might just be repeating what I had said. So, I asked her why she didn’t want to fall behind. She then reasoned “Because I love music so much”.
For her to say this and persevere in her practice was huge for me!! If there is one thing that I’ve tried my best to do – although I’ve resorted to these tactics a few times – is to not force her or bribe her to practice her piano lessons. I have always wanted the motivation for learning music to come from within her. This takes a lot of patience especially if you badly want your child to learn something. Today, I can say that I’m finding some signs of success in my strategies. As a parent who did a Masters in Education but never went to a classroom to teach, I needed some form of approval for my pedagogies. Now, I’m beginning to get some feedback through the actions of my daughter.

Some books to read August 5, 2007

Following are a set of books that I have read/referred to in the past which have helped me to sharpen my sensitivity to childrens’ learning needs and their cognitive development.

Coloring Outside the Lines: Raising a smarter kid by breaking all the rules, Roger Schank
This was the first book I every read on the field of education, back when I was contemplating changing my career to this field – well before even my daughter was born. It helped me to break away from the traditional mode of thinking about schools and education. He starts the book with the sentence – “I am writing this book because I’m horrified by what schools are doing to children”. His emphasis on developing the “life-long passion for learning” in children and what parents and teachers can do to develop it, has lived with me through this day as I struggle to be a good parent for my daughter. He gives very practical tips about how educational theory can be applied to “personal, everyday situations”.

Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child, David Perkins
I read this book for one of my courses at Harvard and it introduced me to what is important to teach children and some of the methods of teaching them. This book is about how we should move away from teaching “fragile knowledge” and move towards teaching crucial skills like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, meta-cognition and so on. For, if we teach children these skills, not only will robust knowledge be automatically developed, but skills crucial to navigating this world and making a difference in it will become ingrained in their brains.
Parents who are not familiar with the field of education may find some of the language in this book somewhat “deep”. But overall this book is quite easy to read and I would say that it is good for us parents to really become familiar with this “deep” language in order to understand our children and their learning, better.

How children learn, John Holt
How children fail, John Holt
I have read only parts of these two books, but they are probably the most down-to-earth books that parents can read to understand their children’s cognitive development. In fact, many of the instances that Holt describes in this book are related to his parenting.

Overall, I would say that all these books drive home the message again and again, that it is not knowledge and facts that we should teach our children, but it is the skills to acquire this knowledge, think critically, problem solve, be creative and so on. And that they should be done in a way that they develop a life long passion for learning and NOT for rewards.

The Joy of Learning…. July 16, 2007

What would it take to induce the “joy of learning” in a child? A Montessori teacher would say – freedom to explore the world, zero rewards for learning, exposure to many different experiences and so on. Having been a Montessori parent of a three year old, during the past 1 year, I cannot agree with it more. Ever since I have gotten to know the philosophy of Montessori education through my daughter’s school, I’ve tried to incorporate it as much as possible into my parenting. The constant persuading and “lectures” on Montessori philosophy that I give to my husband has left him more exhausted and less enthusiastic. Nevertheless I seem to be having some success in influencing him.
To demonstrate what the joy-of-learning can do to a child, here are a few personal experiences that I have had with my daughter.
During swim classes I have never had to persuade my daughter to follow the instructions given by the swim-teacher. She is always eager to be the first one to try anything that the teacher demonstrates in-spite of the looks of anxiety on her peers’ faces. I see some of their parents trying to persuade them to swim by offering rewards like chocolate etc but my daughter has never asked me once as to why SHE doesn’t get a reward for swimming. She has told me time and again how much she enjoys learning to swim.
Another distinct example I can think of is her piano class that I take her to every week. She is in love with these classes and sometimes initiates practice sessions on her own at home. Sure it is hard on her fingers but recently I have seen her trying with determination to get the notes right for the new lessons. Since these piano classes are not Montessori based, her teacher gives the students reward stamps for practicing every day. As a Montessori parent, I have tried to shield her from the so-called “benefits” of reward stamps. I simply play it down and tell her that she should practice to make herself happy and not for the reward stamps. She seems to be happy with that explanation and doesn’t mind getting any number of stamps as long as she feels good during the music class.
Her love for listening-to-stories from books has seamlessly flowed into love for learning-to-read and she is now a beginning reader. While I did research some learning-to-read techniques and used it on her, I have to say that I have never had to ask her to learn how to read. She always initiated these learning-to-read sessions on her own.

Having said all this, I do want to confess that everything has not always been this easy. I wish I had known Montessori principles lot earlier. I probably could have gotten her to develop better eating habits. Most of our meal times are filled with some sort of disarray and we reach a point where we start bribing her for eating vegetables or fruits or some essential staple.
But again, I do know for a fact that Montessori teachers have a lot – a lot of patience, which is why they are Montessori teachers. I recall an instance when I went to pick up my daughter from her school one day. As soon as she saw me, she ran to her teacher and asked her for a snack. Knowing that she will take a while to eat her snack, I told my daughter that there were lots of snacks waiting for her in the car. Then her teacher turned to me and said something like “If you can wait one moment, she would like a home snack from the shelf here. This will hardly take any time” And sure it did, a whole 15 minutes to go back to my car.

So what would it take to induce the “joy of learning” in a child – A LOT OF PATIENCE in addition to all the other things that I listed above. While I’m pretty sure I don’t have the kind of patience to become a Montessori teacher, I’m hoping that someday I’ll get the patience to become a true Montessori parent.