It's a fair question. Maybe it's too early to learn real information about
how the world works? Maybe we should let them live in a fantasy world until
some later age, when we determine that they are ready for the real thing?
I don't believe that, quite obviously. Also, I'd dispute the dichotomy. You
can very easily do both things at once. For instance, Morgana is totally
into fairies at the moment (pokemon has just become yesterday's hero,
unfortunately), and spends most of her time entirely wrapped in a fantasy
world of teddy bears, bunnies, and mouse fairies. With a name like that,
well, what would you expect?
However, she's also interested in the real thing. I don't think this is
anything specific to her; I've talked to lots of kids here and there about
science/techie stuff; they really like it. You have to think about what kids
are trying to do, at that stage in life. Kids are trying to grasp how the
world works, to be able to model physical (and social) reality in their
heads, so that they can better predict outcomes, and ultimately so that they
can exert some real influence on the world.
I object to the fairytails-only mental diet fed to many kids. It seems to be
mostly about delivering a package of standard memes, to infect the kids in
just the way the adults desire. Some of those memes are really dodgy too;
the groundwork for religion, obeying authority, social hierarchies,
deathism, (too many to enumerate). It's catching them at their most
vulnerable, and exposing them to questionable ideas with absolutely no way
of defending themselves; they have no real information, or the mental
frameworks, with which to question this stuff. So it takes hold, digs in
deep, and shapes the rest of their lives.
Why not give them a bit of real information, along with the fluff? Why not
help kids learn how to think, as well as (instead of) how to swallow
whatever tripe they are fed? It's a bit scary, I'll admit... for instance,
for a (relatively short) while my daughter went through a religious phase
(in a naive kind of way), and it was pretty challenging for me not to oppose
it (I'm sure I did anyway, in one way or another).
I can't help feeding my kids my own beliefs, just like every other parent.
I'm trying to counter that by giving them as much independant access to real
information as I can. That means encouraging them to learn to read as early
as possible, encouraging them to ask questions and find things out. It also
means relatively unfettered internet access as soon as it is useful (ie:
when reading is at a high enough standard) - that's a bit scary, but I
couldn't justify not doing it.
There's probably more to say, but I've run out of steam... I'm sure more
will follow.
Emlyn
Mihail wrote:
> "I'd concur with others Emlyn, if you are educating her about bacteria
> and she understands them at the age of 5, you are doing a great job
> as a parent."
>
> I just wonder about the above statement (nothing else then wonder).
> Is this a "new trend" in being a great parent or is just overkill? Is
> quite
> possible that Emlyn's daughter is a "little genius" but what about
> the other
> kids? Should we (parents and grand parents) read them bed time stories
> full
> with microbiology and astronomy scientific explanations or should we
> just
> "let the fables to tickle their imagination"?
> Is an ordinary 5 year old ready for scientific explanations as the one
> about
> bacteria or is just the parents trying very hard to "sync" the kids
with
> their
> own environment?
> Mihail
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:43 MDT