Sunday, April 30, 2017
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Troubles of Alex: A root-words story created by Mihir
Stories are the best ways to learn words. So when we taught Greek and Latin root words like bene, malus, astron, dictus, tele, anti, alter etc etc etc to kids, we asked them to create their own weird stories squeezing these words inside (by hook or crook).
Here is Mihir's story:
Here is Mihir's story:
About the author:
Life skills through stories
If we tell the kids that honesty is the best policy, they learn little. If we talk about honesty through a story, they learn more. If we ask them to create their own story around honesty, well well well.
Life-skills classes can be very boring. So when we put children in charge of the session and ask them to create their stories based on the theme of diligence, honesty, cleanliness, kindness, there is a different kind of spark in the class. The voltage of the spark goes sky-high when we ask them to self-prepare a drama based on the theme and present it. Here is a peek into their ideas:
My two cents:
All kids know all these life-skills. What parents don't know is teaching and expecting the all-time presence of these life-skills can have grave negative consequences too. Like if the robber is asking you for money, you first 'lie' that you don't have, you don't show him the key to the locker. As parents, we lie to protect ourselves from dangers, to avoid dangerous people or situations. Kids observe this. They get confused. On one hand we say, "Don't talk to strangers" and on the other hand we ask the kids to say hello to our friends who may be complete strangers to kids. We ask the kids to answer the doorbell and politely tell the pesky and appropriating neighbor who always spoils our study-time that no one's home.
So don't push the morals and values down their throats like a bitter medicine. Tell them stories. Let them pick their own values. So if after a Thumbelina story, one child's understanding is, "Frogs are dangerous. They kidnap. Stay away from them", don't correct the child. Correct your story instead.
Discuss, don't preach.
Life-skills classes can be very boring. So when we put children in charge of the session and ask them to create their stories based on the theme of diligence, honesty, cleanliness, kindness, there is a different kind of spark in the class. The voltage of the spark goes sky-high when we ask them to self-prepare a drama based on the theme and present it. Here is a peek into their ideas:
My two cents:
All kids know all these life-skills. What parents don't know is teaching and expecting the all-time presence of these life-skills can have grave negative consequences too. Like if the robber is asking you for money, you first 'lie' that you don't have, you don't show him the key to the locker. As parents, we lie to protect ourselves from dangers, to avoid dangerous people or situations. Kids observe this. They get confused. On one hand we say, "Don't talk to strangers" and on the other hand we ask the kids to say hello to our friends who may be complete strangers to kids. We ask the kids to answer the doorbell and politely tell the pesky and appropriating neighbor who always spoils our study-time that no one's home.
So don't push the morals and values down their throats like a bitter medicine. Tell them stories. Let them pick their own values. So if after a Thumbelina story, one child's understanding is, "Frogs are dangerous. They kidnap. Stay away from them", don't correct the child. Correct your story instead.
Discuss, don't preach.
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