"Look at the Light!"

Last night, as I snuggled with Hava next to Xai's crib, reading an article by Richard Feynman about "true education," she kept "interrupting" me with all sorts of comments, questions, and observations.  These interruptions are not generally unwelcome, as I know that my purpose in life is not just to gain my own education but to help my children in theirs.  However, her questions kept coming faster and faster until I finally said, "If I can just finish these next two pages, I will be done and then I can go and get your sippy cup and read the book you want....dear." 

"Oh, yes, mommy!" she promised, smiling and snuggling into me. "I will be quiet."

I started to read again, only to hear, moments later:

"Mom, guess what!  I know why this room is light!"  Well, we have been learning about science in our Wednesday science "classes," short excerpts from Wile's early science textbook "In the Beginning."  They are fun short lessons, each one with a hand's on experiment, connections to God's role in creation, and questions to help the kids make connections.  I was intrigued with her comment, so put down my article and asked her what she meant.

"You see that lamp," she continued, pointing to Kel's clip lamp that was shining against the wall to diminish the light. "The light shines out of it, but it has to bounce off the wall because it can't go through and so the light bounces all over the room making it light!"

Very simple, yes, but it was thinking application of what we had been talking about in science...from a six-year-old.  Smiling to myself after complimenting her on her observation, I went back to read in Mr. Feynman's article "O Americano, Outra Vez!"* about how, as a college physics professor, he has tried to awaken this same thinking in his rote-memorization-crippled students. "They could pass the examinations, and 'learn' all this stuff, and not know anything at all, except what they had memorized," he observed of his students.  "I discovered a very strange phenonmenon: I could ask a question which the studens would answer immediately. But the next time I would ask the question--the same subject, and the same question, as far as I could tell--they couldn't answer it at all!"  They could memorize a specific response but how it applied and how they could use it was beyond their comprehension!

I am a classic example of this. I remember being paralyzed at my Yale courses that expected and demanded thinking. I remember a course at BYU in Anatomy where the teacher actually wanted us to interpret data on our own and make our own conclusions!!! What?!  I remember thinking, "Just tell me what to think, please!!!!"   I just wanted to know what he wanted me to memorize...thinking was too abstract, too uncertain,...what was the answer he wanted?

This whole experience, from Hava and multiple other instances like hers in our home, and then my own educational experience has solidified in my mind the passion to teach my children to think, to make connections, to look for the answers and make their own observations and conclusions.  In the book "Norms and Nobility" by Hicks, he defines what I feel is a true definition of education.  (Read at least the Prologue, Intro, and Chapter 1...well worth it!)

Yes, my Hava, keep thinking.  Keep looking at the world around you, keep making connections, and keep the wonder alive...

*Free download version of Feynman's short article is at the link above.