" Teaching is a walk in the park..... but that park is Jurassic Park !"

A lazy afternoon well spent in mentoring and assisting my 12+ year old prodigal son in his English creative writing exercise. Being an English language educator, that would be my Utopian ideal , sadly, the ground reality is appallingly dystopian!!!

Picture the scenario: 

Summons from the Lord and Master of the house: "Son, you need to pick a suitable topic to work on your creative writing skills! "

Prodigal Son: " Yes papa" ( apparently all the teenage Sturm & Drang is directed against the mother and not the father). " Mom, I can't think, can you suggest a topic please?"

Oh the joy I feel at being asked!

Me: " Of course beta"( and being the ubiquitous teacher , I give him the topic that my 4th graders in school were given last week). "Why don't you try writing on - What I feel when I look out of the window....

Prodigal son-"MOM, what kind of a topic is this????  What will i write about when i look out of the window, what IS there to look out at?? and on top of that I am stuck here, in this lock down, with nothing happening in my life....

Me: " Ok, hold your horses, you are supposed to THINK about it and not rant at the unfairness of your life"

15 minutes goes by...

Me:" Son, are you done writing?"

Prodigal Son-" What? like now? SO soon???"

Me:"How long does it take to think and write?"

Prodigal Son- " Mom, just because you can write does not mean I can too, this is unfair...." ( and the raging and ranting goes on.)

Me: Ok! Ok!, take your time.

Another 15 minutes later..

Me: " SO , what have you finally  written?"

Prodigal Son passes his workbook to me.

My worst nightmare came true, the world as I know if does not exist anymore , the humongous effort and energy spent  by just trying to get him to start thinking on the given topic makes me cry tears of frustration and lament the gross malfeasance by the Almightly creator in giving me a son who cannot appreciate the nuances of English language! His piece is full of gaming and science fiction jargon, a picture of a desolate future due to human actions. Very creative indeed, but where is the  sentence structure, and punctuation, not to forget the use of imagery to make meaning clear?👿

Prodigal Son(looking at my inscrutable expression): " Mom, relax, It is not so bad, at least I used my imagination!"

Me: (in a daze)- "Yes dear! There is that.."😓

END to a  productive and fulfilling afternoon. (ahem!)

Wisdom begins in wonder-Socrates

Chanced upon this  sagacious quote  with a serenely sanguine image while going through my daily Facebook wanderings. The wise Socrates said-"Wisdom begins in Wonder". This got me thinking as to how germane this saying is to our children today.  Without a sense of wonder and a capacity to appreciate the  world around us, we are not really on the real path of learning.

Children have an innate and inherent desire to question and they go about this quest in the most incredibly persistent manner. Not a moment goes by when I am not a target if heavy artillery fire of wondering and questioning from my two boys! As exhausting as it is, there is also a sense of intellectuals exhilaration, when I am able to give a satisfactory answer to their never ending queries. But many a times I am guilty of ignoring their questions, "Not right now, I am busy", or "we will talk about it later". By stifling their curiosity or worse by not acknowledging it, am I impeding them? Is education just amassing a set of degrees, or do I have the courage to let me children actually learn?? When they wonder, they learn- without the filters of what society deems appropriate and outside the parameters of the perception of education! Do we possess the wisdom to set our children free? Food for thought...