Facts: Are they worth teaching?

Fact: A Noun

something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.

2.

something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel  is now a fact.

3.

a truth known by actual experience or observation;something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.

4.

something said to be true or supposed to have happened:The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.

5.

Law . Often, facts. an actual or alleged event orcircumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect orconsequence. Compare question of fact, question of law.

Source: dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact

Today, during a discussion at work, one of my colleagues said that he didn't really care about facts. My other colleagues agreed that facts are, in fact, trivial, and not really worth teaching. There was unanimous agreement that facts are pretty much a waste of time. They are just "background stuff." It's great that kids can quickly access "facts" on the internet, so that we teachers can focus instead on higher order thinking skills. There is no benefit to wondering about facts. I think that this is a fairly common idea among twenty-first century educators: facts rank very low on their list of what is worth teaching.

I'm not sure I agree with this new trend in education. Is content really so unimportant to teach in the 21st century? Should we rely entirely on the internet for our knowledge base? I think not. To begin with, I think that kids should have a rich fund of knowledge to draw on because without a strong knowledge base, they won't be able to understand and analyze anything they read or see. They have to be able to fit new knowledge into some kind of pre-existing framework for the knowledge to make sense. So from a cognitive standpoint, facts are important, and a content-rich curriculum is vital. We may have google, but that doesn't mean that kids should "know" nothing at all and rely entirely on an "electronic memory."

 But even beyond the need to continue to teach content, are facts interesting? Are they worth wondering about? In my experience, contemporary educators feet strongly that facts are so easily accessible in today's world that they are NOT worth wondering about, and in fact, not worth teaching or discussing.
 

Now, I think they may be right for certain kinds of information. In what year did India formally gain independence from British rule? In what year did World War 2 officially end? Who is the current president of America? These are facts that probably don't warrant much wondering and teaching. They are important to know, but not necessarily cognitively challenging. Kids can, in fact, google these questions, find (and hopefully memorize) the answers, and then move on to more interesting discussions.  

But what about other kinds of facts? How about why rainbows exist? According to the definition of a fact, the scientific explanation for why a rainbow exists is a fact. It is a scientific truth that has been proven repeatedly, and no scientist disputes it. Yet, I think it is a far more intellectually interesting and aesthetically pleasing "fact" than a historical date. It is, I think, a question that excites the imagination and the intellect in many ways. When, as a young child, I first wondered about why rainbows exist, I began with imaginative fairy-tale explanations: "The sun smiles after the rain, and the smile is a rainbow." Then I figured out it had something to do with sunlight meeting water, and finally, I figured out how water vapor in the air can act like a prism and split light up into its component parts. I find this fact beautiful and fascinating, partly because it reminds me that our human perception is so incredibly limited. It is only in that brief moment when a drop of water illuminates the true nature of light that we humans are able to see a wider range of light's actual colors and fully appreciate its beauty and complexity. Except for those fleeting moments, we are blind to the mystery of light that exists around us all the time. Yes, this is all fairly factual, but is it worth wondering about? Is it worth teaching? I believe so.

Finally, when it comes to facts, I'm not even really sure what the word means. The dictionary definitions listed above are broad and wide. If one were to ask me what the causes of the cultural revolution in China or the civil war in America were, I assume we could come up with certain facts, according to the definitions of facts. Yet, I think that we may end up discussing "whose facts" these really are. Is there anything in history that really qualifies as a straight up fact, or is everything a mere matter of perception and perspective? I'm not sure.

Can two opposing facts co-exist at the same time? According to many scientists, they can. In her book The Universe and the Tea Cup, physicist K.C.Cole gives many  interesting scientific examples of how frame of reference alters what we see as fact, and how many facts that seem to contradict each other can simultaneously co-exist.

Historians, I'm sure, would agree with this idea as well. A fact is often a matter of perspective and view point. As a child in India, I learnt a particular set of facts about Indian history and the creation of Pakistan. I was surprised when I got to university and met a Pakistani who had, in fact, learned an entirely different set of facts about the creation of his country. Whose facts? Could they all be true? Could they all be distorted?

Anyways, the point of this post is that I find "factual content" quite interesting. I think that many facts are, in fact, worthy of wonder and discussion, and definitely worth teaching.

The Intellectual Lives of Teachers

Over the course of my career, I have worked at 5 different schools. The best one by far was The Winsor School, a highly selective and academically rigorous independent school in Boston. There were many reasons for Winsor's success as a school, but one of them was its genuine belief that a teacher's intellectual life was not just important but absolutely crucial for good teaching and learning to occur in the classroom.

The school supported the intellectual lives of its teachers in a number of different ways. To begin with, the administration created spaces where teachers could congregate and talk informally. We had comfortable couches in our department, we ate lunch together, and we often chatted in the faculty lounge. Secondly, and very importantly, they gave us time to talk, read, and pursue our own intellectual passions. Full-time teachers taught a maximum of three or four courses, and the workload was significantly less than that of  any of the other schools I've worked at. We were rarely bogged down with nonsensical administrative work (unlike the situation that teachers face in most other schools.) Thirdly, they paid for our intellectual pursuits. We actually had a budget that we could use to buy books (for our reading pleasure), tickets to the theatre, and admission to local museums. The budget wasn't huge, but it made a strong statement.  And finally, they let us design our own courses and teach what we were most passionate about. I taught an elective on Indian and Middle Eastern literature. No other school I've taught at would even consider offering such an elective, but at Winsor, my course was greeted with enthusiasm both by my colleagues and by students. In short, this school really cared about the intellectual lives of its teachers. The administration at the school understood the huge connection between a teacher's intellectual life and his/her ability to teach well.

Why does a teacher need to pursue her own intellectual passions in order to truly be effective in the classroom? I know from my own experiences that I am most enthusiastic as a teacher when I'm most intellectually alive. If I'm reading a lot, thinking a lot, engaging in stimulating conversations with my colleagues and students, and generally learning a lot, I find myself designing far more engaging lessons.  Often the studying and reading that I do independently is not directly connected to what I teach, yet invariably, what I read spills into my teaching in some way or another. If nothing else, my own passion for learning serves as a powerful role model to my students (I hope), and this alone could/should inspire them to engage actively with the learning process. Teachers have to think of themselves as scholars and learners, and schools have to support the intellectual lives of teachers in very explicit ways if the school is truly committed to creating a community of learners. This, I think, is one of the distinguishing traits of truly great schools.

Summer Freedom

Today was the last day of this academic year. As the summer stretches out ahead of me, I feel tremendous excitement and relief.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my job, and I’m a big proponent of hard work, schoolwork, homework, and all kinds of work. But by the end of the academic year, I’m totally and completely worn out. Schools are possibly the most structured and disciplined places on our planet. During the school year, faculty and students alike are governed by schedules, timetables, and syllabi. We think in terms of hour-long blocks that end with a loud bell. Our thoughts are always, necessarily, fragmented. Just as we’re working through a particularly difficult piece of poetry, the bell rings. All of a sudden, students have to march to a Chemistry class and wrestle with the periodic table, while I have to run to another class and teach a totally different text. And then, all year long, students and faculty alike march from one set of assignments to another, from one set of assessments to another, from one reporting period to another. Much as I love school, I do find the degree of structure overwhelming.

So, summer is a welcome break. As I contemplate two months of freedom, I realize how important unstructured time is for all of us: faculty and students alike. While structured learning is very important, a whole different kind of learning takes place in the summer. We can spend a morning immersed in a book, with no bell to interrupt the experience. We can immerse ourselves in a particular project or learning experience without the constraints and demands of school.  We can play! Play with ideas, play with words, play in the sand and play at the beach. We can engage in an activity for the pure pleasure of it, without worrying about external assessments and judgments. We can do what we love, what we want, instead of being forced to do what everyone else (administrators, exam boards, parents, teachers) tell us to do. Oh, the joy of summer!

Unstructured time is, I think, critical for deep thinking and creativity. All people, teachers and students alike, need long stretches of unstructured time to imagine, dream, and think. It is this mental space and time that allows us to be reflective and creative. Additionally, we all need downtime to recharge our batteries. And, very importantly, we all need time outdoors, time to connect with nature and our physical environment. The beauty of the academic year is that we have this time built into every year. Every academic year begins anew in August, with renewed vigor and intensity. And then every academic year winds down in June, giving way to the luxury and freedom of summer.

The Case For Homework or 'After-schooling'

A lot of Western research suggests that homework is detrimental in the early years. Kids should play and relax when they come home, and parents should not be “burdened” with the responsibility of homework supervision. Now, as a parent and a teacher, I don’t think this is true at all. I think that homework, whether it is mandated and prescribed by the school or simply created and planned independently by the parent is very important even in the early years, perhaps especially in the early years.

Why? Despite what Alfie Kohn and the other anti-homework guys say, I think that young kids (ages 5 to 10) benefit from twenty minutes to one hour a day of structured academic work at home (reading, writing, math).  The amount of time will obviously vary based on the kid's age. My reasons for this belief are listed below:

REASON #1: GROUP SETTINGS HAVE LIMITATIONS

·     In school, kids learn in a group setting. Whether the teacher engages in whole group instruction or breaks the class up into smaller groups and gives each group an activity to do, each student is rarely spending significant amounts of time working through a particular skill on his/her own. As a teacher myself, I know that I can introduce a concept or skill in class and I can get kids to think critically about a piece of text in a discussion. However, the actual mastery of the skill can only be achieved if the student spends a significant amount of time working with the material independently at a pace that works for him/her.  Now, the fact of the matter is that I don’t have enough class time to let kids wrestle independently with material as much as they should and practice skills as much as they should. They have to do this part on their own at home. 

Furthermore, this skill reinforcement works best at home because kids are less distracted and pressured by their peers. There are definite limitations to the kind of learning and the depth of learning that occurs in a large group setting (classroom setting).  Large groups are great for presentations, discussions, and activities. However, they don’t work as well for skill reinforcement and mastery of content and skills.

REASON #2: KIDS MUST MASTER FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS; PARENTS CAN'T LEAVE THIS ENTIRELY UP TO THE SCHOOLS.

·      In the early years, kids absolutely have to master a range of foundational skills. If they fail to master these skills, middle and high school are going to be nightmares for them. Between the ages of five and ten, kids have to become fluent readers, develop a substantial vocabulary, and master grammar and spelling conventions. In Math, they have to master basic numerical work and problem solving techniques (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, time, money, percentages, basic geometry, word problems).  These foundational skills are necessary to survive in our complex modern world, and they are crucial for future academic success.  What I find as a high school English teacher is that many students lack these basic elementary skills. For example, I often have kids who don’t end sentences with periods (full stops).  Some of my high school students (and I teach at an elite private school!) still don’t understand when to use an apostrophe. Some of my students have very weak vocabularies. I believe strongly that all young kids have to spend time at home mastering these foundational English and Math skills, and while teachers should introduce these skills/concepts and provide activities and avenues for practice, ultimately, parents have to ensure that their kids master these skills. I use the word “master (mastery)” very intentionally. These skills have to be mastered and completely internalized; it is insufficient to merely expose kids to these foundational concepts/skills and hope that they “get it”.

REASON 3: HOMEWORK TEACHES STUDY SKILLS, TIME MANAGEMENT, AND ORGANIZATION

·      Homework is also important because it teaches basic study skills. I have students in high school who cannot get their act together and get down to work. One of my students, for example, told me that she doesn’t know how to organize herself and get her homework done. She literally falls apart when she is asked to read a book, write a paper, or study for a test.  Kids need to learn these skills early on so that high school doesn’t feel like a mad assault for which the kid is totally unprepared. The best way to teach kids how to work independently is to make sure that they sit down in a quiet space every evening after school and do forty minutes to an hour of structured academic work. They have to learn to focus their minds, practice their skills, and sit still.  And they have to learn that they can in fact control their time and get their work done.

While they do this, they will also begin to realize the high correlation between effort and achievement, and they will begin to understand the satisfaction involved in intellectual work. While advocates of a fun and playful childhood might lambast homework as a spoiler of fun times, I believe that learning can be extremely satisfying. I think that working through a math problem can be very interesting and fulfilling, as can reading a chapter of a book, or crafting a thoughtful response to a story. I also think that drill style learning in limited doses can be fun. When a student has to work through a list of math problems, they may seem dry and boring, but the child will enjoy his own sense of achievement as he figures out the answers. And he’ll be able to see that practice does, in fact, make perfect. There is something innately satisfying about learning, and contrary to the popular notion that all learning has to be a song and dance routine to be fun, I fully believe that many kids find real, challenging academic work satisfying, if not “fun.”

Even if a child does not enjoy homework, it teaches important study skills, and it makes a child realize that sometimes we have to get work done whether we like it or not. This is a real-world lesson that kids should learn early on.  I’m a teacher, and while I love being in the classroom, I find marking papers torturous. I absolutely hate marking. Yet, I mark every single piece of paper that my students turn in because it’s part of my job. Kids need to learn that they have to do all parts of their job, and some parts will be fun while others won’t. That’s life.

REASON #4: NO SCHOOL OR TEACHER IS PERFECT; PARENTS MUST GET INVOLVED.

·      A final benefit of homework: it allows parents to make sure that their kids get the education they need. I have worked in a number of schools, and I know that schools are not perfect. If a parent relies entirely on the school to ensure that her child is well-educated, she could be in for a rude shock. Parents have to be involved, and they have to supplement what the school does. If your child’s school is experimental and progressive, and if it espouses the ideas of experiential education and holistic education, then it is probably doing a great job of getting your child to think creatively and building your child’s self-esteem and confidence. These are very worthy and important skills and qualities, and the school should be congratulated and supported in what it does. However, the down side is that the school can’t do it all, and what gets shafted in the process is mastery of foundational skills and the development of hard-core discipline and work-ethic. In contrast, in a more traditional school (I’m thinking about Asian schools particularly), the school may focus so much on foundational skills that they neglect the more fun and creative projects and discussions that are so necessary to promote creative and critical thinking. Parents in this case might have to supplement in the other direction (more open-ended projects instead of drill).

The fact of the matter is that schools and teachers absolutely cannot reach every single child to the degree that they need to. What parents don’t realize is that their child is one of many at a school. Even the best, most expensive schools in the world have teachers that teach many children as opposed to a one-on-one tutoring system; at all the schools I’ve been in, a full-time teacher’s load is fairly overwhelming. An elementary school teacher, for example, teaches, on average, 20 kids in a class (and I’m talking about developed countries. In Indian schools, for example, classes can have over 40 kids.). There is no way that one teacher can give each student much one-on-one time.  Furthermore, she’s busy trying to make sure that the naughty kids stay in line and that the class is not overly chaotic. And she’s bogged down by report writing, lesson planning, and a whole host of nonsensical administrative tasks.

As a high school teacher, I often teach up to 100 students (four or five classes) each semester. And I am inundated with marking, report writing, and admin work. And when I’m in a classroom of 20 kids, I can’t possibly give each kid much one-on-one feedback. The number of kids, the constraints of time, and the demands of classroom management all preclude working individually with kids. If I assign an activity to the group and then spend time working individually with students, you can be totally sure that at least two kids are wasting their time updating their status on facebook or surfing the web (I teach in a one-to-one laptop school that chooses not to block facebook), and another three kids are chatting  (either out loud in the old fashioned way, or on their computers). So, the opportunity cost of one-on-one instruction in a classroom is relatively high. This one-on-one work has to happen outside of class, either at home or in a library.

So, in conclusion, I’m a fan of homework. It’s absolutely necessary, and all children should do it every day whether their school prescribes it or not. If the school doesn’t assign homework, then parents should.

Creating a Math Rich Home: Learning from Asian Moms

I’m an English teacher, so creating a language rich home for my young children came easily and naturally to me. And since most parenting literature emphasizes language (read to your kids, talk to them etc.) over all else, I always felt as though I was doing a great job on the cognitive development front with my kids.  Then I moved to Asia.

Asian moms care deeply about Math, and their goal seems to be creating a math-rich home for their young children, as opposed to just a language rich home.  Surprisingly, there’s very little literature/research on this particular topic. I’ve read tons of parenting books, and they all pretty much ignore the development of early math skills. Yet, in Asia, parents are very focused on cultivating mathematical minds from the get go. (Unfortunately though, they don’t formally research and publish their ideas.)

After a lot of searching, I found a few good academic resources on this subject. Jo Boaler’s book, What’s Math Got To Do With It, and the Sidwell Friends School Math website for lower schoolers, provide lots of good tips for parents. Neuroscientist Lise Eliot makes an interesting case for the early and deliberate development of visual-spatial skills in her book "Pink Brain, Blue Brain" and Stanislas Dehaene explores the way our brains process and understand numbers in his book Number Sense.

So, how should a parent go about creating a math-rich home? Here are a few suggestions, culled together from books, websites, and lots of informal discussions with Asian moms.

   Stage 1 – Ages 1 to 4
   Don’t just think books. Think blocks. Lots of blocks and building sets. Since a strong spatial ability is tightly linked to higher level Math proficiency, most researchers believe that block play will help kids in Math. In fact, there are studies that show a correlation between the sophistication of early block play and later Math achievement.

      Also get your kids to do puzzles since they develop both problem solving strategies and spatial skills.
 Play-doh, art, sand play, and general outdoor play are obviously really important at this stage as well. From the research that I've done, general manipulation of objects/play with objects helps children create a strong foundation for Math. Similarly, activities that involve sorting, classifying, and stacking/nesting of objects are great as well.

Count with kids A LOT.
If you live in a big city with lots of skyscrapers, get them into elevator math. Going up and down on an elevator is kind of like riding a number-line. Kids get to press a button and then see the elevator move up each floor. Talk to kids about the numbers on the elevator. Read the numbers. Calculate how many more floors you need to travel to get to the desired one.
Count when you grocery shop (I need five apples) and when you clean up (Let’s put five blocks back in the bin). Get them to help you cook (we need five eggs).  Count whenever you can.

Use Math talk when you can; for example, can you find me two blue blocks. Great, now find two green ones. How many blocks do you have altogether? Let’s count. See two plus two equals four. Use words such as add, subtract, half, one third, taller, shorter etc.

Don’t just think numbers. Think shapes and patterns. Get kids to draw and color shapes. Get them to identify shapes around them. Get them to look at and identify patterns with shapes.

And finally, let them measure stuff. For some reason, my kids love playing with measuring tapes. So get them to measure all the furniture.

Stage 2- Ages 4 to 6
This is when Asian moms start getting very serious about Math. They figure that kids are now old enough to start learning the real thing. So they introduce concepts, and then they do what Asians love to do: they practice A LOT.

Most Asian kids I know start a Math enrichment program like Kumon, Abacus, or Math Monkeys around age 4 or 5. The idea here is to get kids really familiar with numbers and mental math. I researched these programs and found that they are very, very drill based. Now, I’m all for some daily drilling, but to me Kumon seems mind-numbingly boring. As a result, I chose not to enroll my son in Kumon. However, I know several moms who swear by it, and it definitely makes kids very, very familiar with numbers and basic computations (add, subtract etc.) If, like me, you’re not willing to go the Kumon route, you can still buy the Kumon books and use them a few times a week so that kids get some amount of drilling/practice.

Other great ways to get kids to become very familiar with Math include board games. Play lots of Snakes and ladders and any other game that involves adding and subtracting. Play card games. Make up games with dice and cards. Games like Yahtzee and Ludo work well too. Play mental math games when you're in a car or bus.

Use lots of blocks, legos, jigsaw puzzles, and games that involve numbers and strategies (Connect Four, for example). All of these will help kids develop spatial skills, which are tightly linked to higher level Math proficiency.

Introduce the Tangram game – great for getting kids to disembed shapes, and thus develop spatial skills.

Stage 3: Formal School (Grade 1/Primary 1 onwards)

Now, when I think about Math in grade 1 and beyond, I think about it on three levels: Math facts, Problem Solving, and Spatial Skills. Kids need to work on all three levels throughout the year so that by the end of the year they have not only developed a mastery of math facts but also developed their problem solving and spatial skills. For most kids, Math Facts are the easy part; it's the more analytic problem solving and the more creative spatial skills that are harder.

Level 1 – Mastery of Math Facts - Procedural Knowledge.

Kids have to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide quickly and efficiently. This is stuff they will use all their lives, and even if a calculator can do it for them, it is essential that they learn how to do it themselves. This is really basic foundational stuff. And the only way that kids get really, really familiar with numbers is through daily practice. So, whether you go the Kumon route or not, you’ve got to give your first grader lots of daily drills on this material. In Singapore, kids in primary 1 are adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers with frightening speed. And by the end of the year, they all know all their times tables. You’ve got to admire the dedication that Asian moms have towards making sure their kids know their Math facts. The sheer reverence for Math is something else.

While many Asian programs (Kumon, for example) allow kids to use standard algorithms (stack and carry to add with regrouping, for example), many Western programs and many Asian mental math programs advocate solving complex computations by breaking numbers apart. For example: If you have to subtract 83 – 15, you could think of 15 as 10 and 5. First subtract 83 – 10 to get 73 (very easy) and then subtract 73 – 5 to get 68. You could even think of 5 as 3 and 2, so 73 – 3 = 70, and 70 -2 = 68. Kids need to work on decomposing and recomposing numbers quickly. They’ve got to be flexible with numbers. Jo Boaler’s book claims that this is a distinguishing trait of high achieving Math students in schools. I think that kids need to be taught both the standard algorithms as well as the "mental math" techniques so that they can use whatever works best given the situation.

Level 2 – Problem Solving - Conceptual Knowledge
Singapore Math workbooks are great for this level. They introduce kids to interesting and complex word problems that require good verbal comprehension and significant logical and analytic thought. These books are not for the faint-hearted. They are about two or three years ahead of your average American text book, but then Americans don’t seem to care about Math the way Asians do.

Jo Boaler advocates making problem solving more creative by offering kids “Math Settings” or a range of materials (for example, blocks or dice) so that the kids can create their own problems. They shouldn’t just be able to respond to a question, they should be able to ask their own questions too. Some of the Singapore Math books provide equations (14 + 8 = 22, for example) and then ask the kids to provide a word problem for the equation. Writing word problems is a great way to make sure that a kid really understands a mathematical concept.

Level 3 – Spatial Skill Development  - Creativity

So this is where I’m not so sure that Asian programs really work. They seem to be very workbook oriented and they need a more hands-on element. I’m terrible at spatial thinking, so I get worried that my kids may inherit my deficiency in this department. However, research suggests that spatial skills can be taught and improved with practice.

Activities to improve spatial skills include building models using directions or pictures (Blik Blok,  Lego kits, modeling clay, Origami) and understanding how to put shapes together or disembed shapes (Tangrams, measurement activities, building activities).

Additionally, video games (Tetris, action games) supposedly help in this department. However, video games seem to come with a whole slew of problems of their own, so I’d be careful about overdoing gaming.
According to Conrad Wolfram, director of Wolfram Research and author of an article on connecting Math to the modern world, "programming is the way you write down Math in the modern world." It makes sense to begin programming activities (lego-programming/elementary robotics, Scratch, Logo etc.) with kids in elementary/middle school. 

Kids need more opportunities to do hands-on stuff like taking apart a simple machine and putting it back together. Or simple carpentry projects.

Another great activity, which is very popular amongst Indian kids, is chess. I’m not a chess player, but it supposedly teaches spatial skills and problem solving skills simultaneously. This is an area that I find particularly challenging as a parent. It is definitely incredibly important in the 21^st century, where visual-spatial skills are absolutely necessary to understand and navigate the digital world and the real world.

 I think that creating a Math rich home and investing significant time and energy in Math from the get-go is a good idea. Just as early reading and talking help prime kids for success in school, I’m fairly convinced that early exposure to Math games and Math concepts help prime kids for success in Math. One more thing: in Asian families, succeeding in Math is not an optional thing. Just as kids have to learn to read fluently, they have to do well in Math, and that’s that.

Neuroscience and Education

Over the last three years, I’ve read a wide range of books on neuroscience, the plasticity of the brain, and the implications of all this research for educators and parents. Written by scientists, educators, and cognitive psychologists, these books span a wide range of topics and are sometimes more technical/scientific and sometimes less so. I’ve read tons of these kinds of books; the most notable ones are listed below:

Inside the Brain: By Ronald Kotulak

Magic Trees of the Mind: By Mariam Diamond

Reading in the Brain: By Stanislas Dehaene

Number Sense: By Stanislas Dehaene

Proust and the Squid – The Story and Science of Reading: By Marianne Wolf

Pink Brain, Blue Brain : By Lise Eliot

The Sexual Paradox : By Susan Pinker

The Tell-Tale Brain : By V.S. Ramachandran

I’ve also read some really interesting books by Jane Healy, an educator and psychologist, who writes about child development and the effects of the media. I found ‘Endangered Minds’ very interesting and provocative and ahead of its time (it was written in the 1990’s), and I also enjoyed ‘Your Child’s Developing Mind.’ However, I wonder about the scientific merit of these books, particularly Endangered Minds.

As a parent and an educator, I find these books absolutely fascinating, and I think that they have influenced both how I parent and how I teach significantly. Perhaps they have influenced my parenting more than my teaching, but either way, they have altered how I think about the brain and the process of learning.

So what are the big, enduring ideas that I have learnt from these books? I've listed some of the ideas I find most compelling below. The list is somewhat disjointed and far from complete, but it's a start.

·         
The idea of neuro-plasticity:

Genes matter. Heredity matters. We do come hard-wired with our own strengths and talents. Much of the research I’ve read points to the power of genes and heredity. However, what I find fascinating is that we can literally train our brains/minds to develop and strengthen certain neural circuits by spending a lot more time on activities that engage these circuits. If you want to be a good reader, spend a lot of time reading. If you want to be a good builder, spend a lot of time building. This is a fairly intuitive idea, and on some level, we already know this. However, the science behind this idea confirms that how children spend their time will, in many ways, determine what neural circuits they eventually develop.  This is not to say that we don’t come hard-wired with our own strengths and talents. We do. Yet, we can choose to grow our talents and minimize our weaknesses by spending our time wisely. A corollary to this is that students must actively engage in an activity to really strengthen a neural circuit. Merely sitting in a classroom won’t actually help a student learn; he/she has to use his brain to get those synapses firing.

·      
Spatial skills can be taught: This is a particularly provocative idea for me because I have atrocious spatial skills. I have never understood why spatial skills are almost completely ignored in formal educational settings. I was a stellar student in school precisely because I never had to engage in any kind of spatial work. Given that visual-spatial skills are the foundation of all higher-level math and science, I just don’t understand how or why they are ignored in formal educational settings. If spatial skills had been taught in school, I might have been diagnosed with a severe “spatial disability” and been given intensive remediation in this field. While it would have made school much less fun and somewhat humiliating, it might have helped me learn to drive properly, read a map, experiment more with technology, and put together IKEA furniture. I’m hopeless at all of the above. As a parent, I am determined to make sure that my kids get explicit instruction in this area.

There are biological differences between the ways in which female brains and male brains are hardwired, most likely a function of prenatal testosterone surges in males and differing brain sizes in males and females. However, when measured in young children, these differences are small for most cognitive areas; yet they become exacerbated by how children spend their time, and thus, by adulthood, they are very wide.  Again, the research suggests that how a boy or girl spends his time is very important. Video games (in moderation) are good for developing spatial sense. Reading is great for developing not just verbal-linguistic skills but also greater emotional intelligence (empathy, compassion). All boys and girls need exposure to a broad range of fields.

·      Aggression: The biological and hormonal basis of aggression is particularly interesting. I think that my understanding of men and boys has increased considerably as a result of this research. When I think back to the incredibly high levels of aggression that characterized my students, particularly the males, in inner-city Baltimore, I feel as though I understand where all that aggression came from. Living in a high-stress and violent environment can literally re-wire a vulnerable brain to become chronically ready to “fight – or –fly,” or in even more frightening cases, can lower levels of serotonin to the point where children lose their ability to feel any remorse or sympathy for others. This interaction between a hostile environment and a vulnerable brain can cause dangerously high or low levels of key neurotransmitters, resulting in either increased rage, which can trigger violence, or a lack of empathy, which can cause more cold-blooded killing.

·      When one begins to see human behaviors in light of neuro-development and biology, it becomes easier to be patient and compassionate. Instead of merely feeling frustrated with students who struggle, I try hard to consider how their brains are working. What are the specific ways in which this child is struggling? How can I break the task down to help him/her understand it? Similarly, with my own young children, it is much easier for me to deal with a tantrum when I consider that a three year old’s frontal lobe/pre-frontal cortex is insufficiently developed. Expecting her to be rational is somewhat unrealistic given the stage of biological development she’s in. 

·      Reading literally changes/re-wires the brain. The brains of literate individuals are significantly different from those of illiterate individuals. My favorite books were Maryanne Wolf’s “The Story and Secret of the Reading Brain” and Dehaene’s “Reading in the Brain” because they beautifully lay out the ways in which the brain learns to read despite not being hardwired to do so. Both books are a real tribute to the invention of writing and the supreme achievements of the reading brain, and as a reader and an English teacher, I found these books exhilarating and exciting. The process of reading, initially phonetic and eventually lexical, is absolutely astounding. And the power of words – how we remember them, understand them, use them, and change them is tremendous. Both books, however, made me realize just how challenging reading can be for a dyslexic student, and they helped me understand the need to revise my negative assumptions about struggling readers.

The research all shows that the brain is a “use-it-or-lose-it” muscle. I know from my own experience that there have been times in my life when I’ve used my brain intensely and felt very intellectually alive. In graduate school, for example, I spent all my time engaged in intense intellectual activity, and I felt as though my brain was in phenomenal shape. In contrast, when I’ve felt stressed and overwhelmed by personal/emotional matters, I’ve used my brain a lot less, and in the process, have actually felt significantly less intelligent. When I lived in NYC, I was overwhelmed by my father’s illness and death, and by the chronic stress associated with working when one has a very young child at home. My son was severely asthmatic as an infant and toddler, which didn’t make things any easier. As a result, I read much less, and I found that my concentration was severely impaired, my thinking became muddled and imprecise, and I sometimes found it hard to write even a simple paragraph. The depletive and dangerous effects of stress on the brain are very real, as is the effect of less use of the brain. It makes perfect sense: you use your brain and you build it up; you stop using it and those synaptic connections begin to die.

If there’s one thing I want to do for my children and my students, it is to inspire them to love learning and to use their brains as actively and enthusiastically as possible. I want them to have rich inner-intellectual lives.

Life in the Twenty-First Century

I’ve been thinking a lot about life in the 21^st century and what it entails. If, as I do, you live in places like Manhattan and Singapore, you have a particularly unique insight into what the 21^st century requires because these places have leapt into the 21^st century without glancing backwards. In contrast, when I visit Chennai, the city of my birth and childhood, I feel as though I’m travelling back in time to the more laid-back 20^th century.  (Every time I return to Singapore from Chennai, my husband cheerfully welcomes me back to the 21^st century.) But here, in Singapore, where the 21^st century is in full swing, the rapid pace of global change and the accompanying excitement and anxiety are palpable.

So, to begin with, what’s life like in the 21^st century? Here's a quick glimpse into our 21st century lives:

My husband, my kids and I are vacationing in idyllic Bali. We’re driving up from Ubud to Taro, to visit the elephant park and take an elephant safari. As we drive, we pass beautiful paddy fields and old (but live) temples. We’re driving through a landscape that is still entrenched in the peaceful and slow-paced 20^th century and hasn’t caught up with the frenetic 21^st century.
 

However, in our car, we’re firmly implanted in the 21^st century. My husband, an investment banker, is on a conference call with his team. The associates, analysts, and other bankers he is talking to are based in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta, and together they’re working on a deal with an Indonesian client.  He’s fully engrossed in this call, oblivious of the beautiful scenery outside our window. In order to keep our two kids quiet so that he can concentrate on his work, he gave them an i-pad, and they are busy watching you-tube videos of American shows (Arthur and Dora).  They, too, are oblivious of the lush green paddy fields and the beautiful Balinese-Hindu temples along the way. I look out the window and envy the families I see on the way; their lives seem so peaceful and natural, unencumbered by all this technology. 

I teach at a school that has embraced the 21^st century without a backward glance. While I admire all that this school is doing, it often fills me with a deep anxiety and a sense of physical dread. In many ways, I feel as though my profession (English teaching) is becoming redundant and obsolete. Do kids really need to read books and write essays in the 21^st century? I sometimes wonder if everything I’m teaching my students is really a waste of time. 

A little explanatory anecdote: I was talking to my sister yesterday. She’s starting a web-based company and is busy getting it set up. She has hired a number of photographers and copywriters for her company. The catch, however, is that the photographers, who are mostly self-taught, are getting paid $200(US) an hour, but the copy-writers, who have degrees from top universities and write really well, get paid only $12 to $15 (US) per hour.  The photographers are in big demand; they’re harder to find. The copywriters, on the other hand, are a dime-a-dozen. She got 10 responses to her ad for copywriters on Craiglist within the first hour.  It’s the images that count in today’s world. The words are peripheral, and no-one really values them anymore. 

Does written language count at all in a world dominated by visual imagery and technology? Am I wasting my time trying to teach students to write well and to analyze the effects of words and literary devices? Wouldn’t they be better off in a photography course? I think English teachers are going to be like Latin or Sanskrit teachers soon – an interesting bunch of people, who teach a largely useless subject. Of course, to counter this, the school I work at is trying very hard to introduce more media-related elements to our English courses. We’ve got to incorporate technology into all our lessons and have our kids analyze movies and images instead of just books. What happens then, to teachers like me, who just absolutely love books?

So, I’ve been thinking about what cuts it in the 21^st century, both as a parent and a teacher. Kids have got to be trained to be visual and spatial. Forget books and words; think images and electronics.

What should you encourage if you really want your child to be employable and successful in the 21^st century? Technology, technology, and more technology.
 

Fields that have always been science and technology driven (STEM) will continue to be lucrative and important. But the big news now is that even fields like the arts are all tech driven. Every field is going digital – there’s digital art, digital music, digital storytelling (movies, you-tube videos etc). Just learning an old-fashioned art form isn’t going to get you very far. A friend of mine who runs a gallery in Chennai (where they are still painting on canvases in good old 20^th century ways) said that globally, all the cutting-edge artists, are incorporating technology into their work. The art world is changing too.  And, of course, writing has to be technological as well – online newspapers and magazines, e-books, movies, videos, advertising – all our writing will have a technological component. Most of my friends have moved from paper-based books to electronic books. It’s just where the world is going.

So parents, if the goal is survival and success in the heartless and frenetic 21^st century, don’t bother with books. Don’t spend hours reading to your kids. Sign them up for photography classes and enroll them in i-camps where they can design video games and make movies. Let them spend more time in front of those screens so that they train their visual skills and begin to notice what happens in a picture or image. Buy them more video games and let them loose in this visual age.

What’s going to happen to people in the 21^st century? As their minds are deluged by an onslaught of information and visual images, and they’re never given breaks from work and socializing (you’ve got to respond immediately to texts, emails, facebook messages etc. no matter where you are or what you’re doing), people are going to become increasingly stressed, anxious, and hyper.  So, for those low-tech people who can’t keep up with the rapid pace of technological change, there is a field that will grow: nurturing and healing the technology-afflicted.  They’ll need more massages, more yoga, and more counseling than any previous generation. They are human, after all, and they do have physical bodies and emotions to consider. A virtual massage probably won’t do the job (who knows though? Maybe in the next 20 years?). They will probably still want to feel someone’s physical hands on their backs and necks. On-line counseling? Could happen, but I suspect that human healing will work best when it’s face-to-face.  High tech people will need some low-tech/high-touch healing.

So those are my thoughts on the 21^st century. I’m clearly not cut out for it, and as a result, I’m seriously contemplating leaving Singapore and moving to Chennai, where I was born. Then I can continue to live in the good old 20^th century.

"Leading them to the thresholds of their own minds"

I recently re-read poems from Gibran's The Prophet, and his words on "Teaching" really struck me. I think that, as a teacher, I can "teach" kids certain rules: grammar rules, ways to set up an essay or write a thesis statement,  vocabulary, and spelling. Yet, as Gibran says, real understanding is not necessarily something that's teachable. Ultimately, learning is an active and individual process that each learner must embark on himself. Understanding cannot be given or taught; it must be actively sought and found by the learner, and perhaps, that is why it is so very special. In Gibran's words, "the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man."

What can I give my students as a teacher? I think the most important thing I can do is share with them my own love of literature, language, and learning. If I can communicate to them the intense pleasure and satisfaction that intellectual work brings, perhaps I can inspire them to embark on their own learning journeys and "lead [them] to the thresholds of [their] own minds."

On Teaching

 Kahlil Gibran


No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

East and West: Parenting Styles

When I read articles and books on child psychology and parenting, I increasingly realize how Western-centric all the available research is. With a few exceptions (most notably, Chua’s sensationalist book about tiger parenting),  all the child psychology and parenting literature available is written by Westerners, about Western kids, and for Western parents.

 Interestingly though, most of the literature presents itself as universal, and Western child psychologists seem convinced that their findings apply to all children around the world.  After leaving the US and moving to Singapore, I have been struck by how un-universal Western child rearing and parenting styles are, and I have also become increasingly aware of the very different value systems that inform Western versus Eastern parenting.

Singapore has a substantial Indian population, and since I’m Indian, I have easy access to this particular community. For months now, I’ve been informally polling Indian moms in the playground about their views on childrearing and parenting, and I’m fascinated by what I’ve found. Most of the moms are middle and upper class Indians now living in Singapore, and they have school age children under the age of 12. Simultaneously, I’ve been aware of the marked differences between Eastern and Western parents during parent conferences at the school where I work.

A big qualifier:  I'm making massive generalizations here based on a very limited sample, and there are bound to be many exceptions to these broad stereotypes and statements. In fact, I've worked with many students and parents that defy these stereotypes completely. I have encountered extremely intense and high pressure Western parents and very relaxed, laid-back Indian parents. Obviously, one should never pre-judge a child/parent/person, but nevertheless, I have noticed broad trends and am interested in exploring them further.

 Here are some of my findings:

1. “The Individual versus the collective”

This finding has been documented in numerous sociology/anthropology studies, and I see it very clearly around me. 

Western parents believe strongly in the idea that their child is an individual whose individual rights should be respected. They are often hesitant to critique, punish, or push their children too much because they believe that this will infringe on the child’s individual rights, and it may hinder the child’s development by squelching his creativity and preventing him from expressing his true self. They don’t want him to conform to a group, and they hope that he will be his own person.  They want to encourage choice and freedom, even if that means occasionally letting the child fail or letting the child challenge them/talk back because they believe strongly in the ideals of individuality, self-expression, creativity, independence and free will. 

In contrast, Indian parents believe strongly that their child is part of a family and a community, and that it is of paramount importance that the child realizes that every decision he makes and every action he takes has consequences for the entire family and community. They see the Western way as selfish: it is selfish to focus on the individual, and it is unseemly for a person to consider his own needs as more important than the needs of others. Each child’s life is inextricably linked to the lives of his parents, grandparents, and his community. He must understand how to respect others (particularly his elders), and how to act in a way that maintains harmony in the family and the community. Indian mothers seem far less concerned with self-expression and independence than they are with the child's ability to respect his elders and show consideration for the family unit. 

If the Indian child challenges his parents, speaks rudely, or slacks off academically, the parents don’t see it as a natural part of growing up, like Western parents do. They see it instead as selfish and aberrant behavior that is inexcusable. When asked what parents value most, almost all the Indian mothers I polled said “manners” and “respect.”  When one looks at Indian mythology and stories, these values of respect, loyalty to the family, and filial piety are evident everywhere. Children are expected to sacrifice their own personal feelings and desires for the sake of the family.

Where Westerners may view personal sacrifice  as oppressive, Indians view it as noble and good. One's duty or dharma, in Indian terms, often entails making sacrifices for the sake of the family and community.  For example, a child may want to play instead of study, but clearly for both the child’s own good and the family’s good, it is better for the child to study. Therefore, the Indian parent would feel absolutely justified in making the kid study, regardless of what the child wants. The stereotypical Western parent, on the other hand, would engage in a discussion with the child, and then second-guess herself, wondering whether she is somehow infringing on the child’s individual rights and squelching the child’s creativity by “forcing” him to do something against his will.

One of my Western colleagues used the word "oppressed" when she described the ways in which an Indian/Asian child is "limited" by his parents. In the Western mind, dictating terms to a child is oppressive because it is a violation of that child's individual rights. In contrast, in the Indian mind, it is absolutely necessary because it ensures that the child understands his/her role in the family and it keeps the child on a path that the parent believes will lead to future success and happiness. 

2. Approach to Academic Work: How much should a parent demand of a child? Is it right to push a child academically? Is it fair to the child? Are Asian/Indian children “beaten into submission” by their parents? Is pressure good or bad?

These are interesting questions to consider. The Western view is that parents should be involved in the child’s education and they should make sure that the child does his/her homework. However, at the end of the day, most Western parents will concede that their true goal is to make sure that their kids are “happy” and that they feel good about themselves. In this regard, they worry about striking a balance. They want to motivate and inspire their children, but they also want their children to be happy, and they want to praise and validate their children as much as possible.

The Indian view is quite different. As one Indian mom said to me, “happiness is all well and good, but it won’t get my child a job, and it won’t put food on his table when he’s an adult. He may think that watching television or hanging out with his friends is making him happy, but I know that in the long run, he will be happy if he does well in school and is able to succeed professionally.” Similarly, they seem less concerned with self-esteem. As another Indian mom, who admits to regularly berating  her son for not studying enough, said to me, “if he works very hard and does very well, he will develop self-esteem. So, I have no qualms about shouting at him for not working hard enough or not getting top grades. Self esteem is the reward of hard work.”

I wonder about two things when it comes to the amount of parental pressure that one exerts. Firstly, I think that there is a connection between the economic standing of a society and the degree of anxiety/pressure that a parent feels. India is still a developing country, and Indian parents are acutely aware of the global competition that they are engaged in. They constantly make comments such as “life is not easy” and “look at the competition.” They know that their own country will not provide their child with any back-up (social security/welfare etc) and that the playing field is still not entirely level for Indians. They are absolutely sure that the stakes in this game of education are very, very high, and that failure is not an option. So they push their kids like crazy.

 In contrast, Westerners have dominated the world for the last four hundred years. They have good safety nets: their kids can work at Starbucks and still live somewhat decently, they can rely on the state for public services of a reasonable quality, and they know that the world still favors them over others. In some ways, they can afford to consider “happiness” over “success.”

While part of the explanation for Asian parental anxiety versus Western parental complacency may be economic, a part is also certainly cultural.  Asians feel morally justified in pushing their kids, so they do. Westerners don’t feel as though it is morally right to push their kids too hard, so they don’t. Indians/Asians raise their kids to be obedient (“no back-chat allowed”) so their kids listen when they are told to stay home and study. Westerners raise their kids to challenge authority (“it’s good to question the system”) so their kids may challenge them when they are told to stay home and study.

3.  Western parents focus on Reading; Indian parents focus on Math.

This has been a particularly interesting finding. All Western books on early childhood stress the importance of reading aloud to your child, and then go on to cite numerous studies that show high correlations between “language immersion” and later academic success. They claim that the single most important thing a parent can do to improve their child’s educational outcomes is to read to the child on a daily basis. However, they say almost nothing about early Math skills.

Indian parents (and I think most Asian parents) are, interestingly, fairly relaxed about reading but totally obsessed with their child’s performance in Math. They may or may not read to their child on a daily basis, but they all immerse their child in a Mathematical world from an early age. Most of the Indian moms I polled began formal Math instruction with their children by age 4, and some by age 3. By the time their child turned 5, without any exceptions, they “sat with their child” on a regular basis to work through Math workbooks. They also encourage “Math games” such as chess, building  (lego) activities, and board games. 

They are big fans of the Singapore Math curriculum, and even the most liberal and low-maintenance moms admit to supplementing the school’s Math curriculum with frequent Math sessions.  The Indian moms I spoke with in Singapore uniformly believe that you cannot trust “International Schools” (read “Western schools”) when it comes to Math because Western schools don’t value Math sufficiently.

Where Western moms are convinced that reading to their child is the most important thing that they can do for their child academically, Indian moms are convinced that giving their child a solid Math foundation is their top job on the academic front. Read more about Asian moms and math here: Building a Math Rich Home: Learn from the pros. And read more on Asian moms and the stuff they do here: What Asian Moms Know

More to come on this topic!

What's in a Word?

I have always been fascinated by words. Where they come from, how they evolve, how they break down into smaller bits (roots, suffixes, prefixes, parts of a compound word etc.), and most importantly all the baggage they carry. Each word conjures up a host of associations, flavours, and moods. The very idea of connotation fascinates me. How is it that a word, one little word, can say so much? And how is it that we can all understand all that baggage, all the history, all the stories that each word tells?

Why are words so important? How do they define and delineate the parameters of thought? Why are our thoughts so constrained by a lack of vocabulary but so liberated by a rich and varied vocabulary? Although a number of linguists have supposedly proven that thought is possible without language, I’m not totally and fully convinced. I’ve read Steven Pinker’s books on this particular topic, and I’ve heard his view reiterated by a number of other linguists, but I’m still fairly certain that most thought, if not all, is possible only when we have the words to think with. And definitely, having the right words helps to clarify, organize, articulate, and understand thoughts in meaningful ways.  The greater our vocabularies, the more sophisticated and complex our thoughts can be.

Last year, my students did an exercise where they tried to come up with alternatives for highly clichéd words like “sad” and “nice” and “mean” and “happy.” What we found, as a class, was that our alternatives were not just fresher, they were always more nuanced. Sad is a generic word, but dismayed, on the other hand, describes not just sadness, but a certain type and degree of sadness. Similarly, melancholic, miserable, and depressed all convey very specific types and degrees of sadness. The broader the range of vocabulary, the more accurately and effectively we can think and the more clearly we can articulate a thought. Quite phenomenal, if you ask me.

Given the enormous role that words play in our ability not only to comprehend what we read  but also to think critically and deeply about the world around us, I think that helping students expand their own vocabularies is a critical part of teaching. A staggering statistic: the average school child acquires between 2500 and 3000 new words each year. Most of these words, obviously, are learned incidentally. This year, I’m teaching a seventh grade course, a ninth grade course, and a tenth grade course. It is amazing to me how many words my seventh graders do NOT know: words like portray, anecdote, and peril. Most of my ninth graders know these words. I’m always impressed by the size of my high school students’ vocabularies. The fact that in two years, my seventh graders too will have these sophisticated high school vocabularies is incredible, to say the least.

What are the best ways to teach vocabulary? I think that using a sophisticated vocabulary is possibly the most natural and effective way to expose students to new words. Instead of dumbing down my vocabulary when I speak with teenagers (or even my own, much younger, children), I very intentionally use complex and nuanced words. If students ask me what the words mean, I will discuss the words. If not, I’ll just use the same word often, with the hope and expectation that my students will learn the word incidentally, just from hearing it used in context on multiple occasions. Additionally, I think that direct instruction is probably important. However, I find it hard to make the time to teach vocabulary in an explicit way, and I also find that these teaching sessions are not as productive as the more natural method of merely using more complex words. Students may be able to define a word that has been explicitly taught, but they often have trouble understanding it well enough to use it effectively. They don’t get the word; they don’t get all the connotations, all the baggage that the word carries, until they hear or read the word used in context often.

As a teacher, however, I can only do so much. Vocabulary acquisition has to start early, and it has to start in the home. The words that a child encounters from infancy onwards will determine not just how well the child does on reading tests down the road but also the child’s ability to think and communicate. If there’s anything a parent can do for a child, it is to expose the child to the richest array of words possible.

The Stories We Tell

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the impact that foundational stories have on people. By foundational stories, I mean those stories that most children in the culture are familiar with: the religious, mythological, and more contemporary stories that all children in a culture grow up hearing.  The more I think about the role that stories play in shaping a child’s understanding of self and society, the more I’m convinced that at a very early age (maybe 3 or 4),every young child already has a worldview based primarily on the stories he hears.

Take, for example, the stories that a typical child growing up in India hears. Even very young children hear about Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita, in the Ramayana. Through this story, they learn the tremendous importance of filial piety since Rama is revered for obeying his stepmother, Kaikeyi, without any questioning or resistance, even when she demands that he give up his kingship and live in the forest for 14 years. Rama is idolized for both obeying his stepmother without question and for ensuring that his father is able to keep his promise. The ideal son, Rama willingly gives up everything for his parents. Additionally, children learn about the responsibility and duty that siblings (brothers, particularly) have for each other. Lakshman accompanies Rama into the forest, and Bharatha only rules in Rama’s name. Finally, children imbibe a host of ideas about gender roles through this story: men fight, women need to be rescued, women should be chaste etc.

 Once an Indian child understands this basic storyline with all the values it carries, he will then encounter other stories through the Indian media, all of which reinforce and re-play these same themes and values. Every Bollywood story and Hindi soap will idealize the family in much the same way, and they will all emphasize and reinforce the centrality of these familial relationships. Without even realizing it, the Indian child, early on, will have been taught that the purpose of life is to uphold the family structure, no matter what the personal costs of this might be. Filial piety, unquestioning obedience towards one’s parents, a deep responsibility towards one’s siblings, and a certain patriarchal view of the world would have been etched in the child’s mind.

In contrast, the average Western child hears a different genre of stories. The stories don’t deal with the theme of filial piety; they centre instead on the individual, who must overcome obstacles to achieve an independent victory. Most Western children grow up either with religious (Biblical) stories, with fairy tales, and, if they’re lucky, with more contemporary classic Children’s literature. The Little Engine (that could) is not only kind but also courageous as she chugs up a very large hill so that she can help the dolls and toys get to the children on the other side of the mountain. Animal characters like Curious George and Franklin are the heroes of their own stories because they take risks, have adventures, and learn something.

 Even ancient Western myths like the Iliad and the Odyssey are about the individual’s quest for greatness. Biblical stories and parables also focus on Jesus’ life and his miracles. The New Testament is largely the story of an individual’s journey to help and save others. By the age of three or four, the average Western child has decided that the main purpose of life is to seek fulfilment and greatness on an individual level. You become great because you overcome obstacles as an individual, not because you make sacrifices for the sake of your family and community. Furthermore, the characters in all these stories tend to help strangers rather than family members and relatives. These themes of individual success are, of course, reinforced by the Western media in cartoons, movies, and sitcoms. Therefore, the worldview that the young child develops is then reinforced and strengthened as he grows up.

I often have conversations with my students about fairy tales, myths, and other foundational stories. How have these stories shaped the way we understand ourselves? How do they shape the way we understand the world and our place in it?  What value systems are embedded in each of these stories? What kinds of scripts do they give us for our own lives? We may think that children’s stories are merely for entertainment and academic enrichment, but I think that the role they play in socializing a child into his/her own cultural context is tremendous. Additionally, from a literary standpoint, these foundational stories often give us the original scripts for all later literature and film.  

Achieving Balance

It’s interesting that all children – whether they are toddlers or teens – tend to simultaneously need opposing things. For example, they need structure and predictability, yet they also need a considerable amount of freedom. Without structure, there’s chaos and kids tend to do nothing at all, yet without freedom, there’s a stifling of creativity and imagination. Similarly, they need high expectations and a little pressure/stress so that they really push themselves, but they also need a safe and nurturing environment where they feel comfortable taking risks and failing. They need guidance because when left completely to their own devices they tend to flail and flounder, but at the same time, they also need to be given choices and left to themselves so that they think creatively and learn to make their own decisions. They need teachers and parents who are simultaneously firm and nurturing, who are at once both “hands-on” and “hands-off.”

The more I think about it, the more I realize that achieving this balance is an important part of being a successful teacher. And it is not always easy. For example, I often wonder about how prescriptive an assignment/project should be?  And how democratic should my classroom be? How do I find the right balance between guiding students and empowering them? And what about the effect of grades: how much should I consider a student’s feelings/self-esteem when I grade a paper or give feedback on a project? How do I find the right balance between pushing a child to work harder and helping a child maintain his self-confidence and self-esteem? How much to critique/push versus how much to praise?

Similarly, as a mother, I find that I’m constantly trying to find a balance between holding my children close to me and letting them go. I’ve been trying very consciously to give my six year old son more freedom. And I’m trying hard to give him the time and space he needs to play creatively on his own in any way he chooses. Yet, I also want to make sure that he gains exposure to organized sports and music, and I want to help him improve his reading skills, so I enrol him in classes and work with him on his reading at home. What’s a good balance though? How much structure? How much freedom? As a mother, I find this balancing act particularly interesting because it has such an emotional dimension to it. Should one be a “free-range parent” who encourages lots of creativity and risks, sometimes at the expense of safety, or should one be a “helicopter parent” who hovers and protects, thereby squashing independence, creativity, and risk-taking? Obviously, the answer is to be somewhere in-between. The mothers I admire most are the ones who are simultaneously very involved in their kids’ lives but also very relaxed and chilled out about their kids. They know intuitively when to let go and when to hold on, when to encourage risks and when to provide safe support.

So, both in my teaching and in my parenting, I think I need to continue to seek balance between contradictory and opposing forces.