Being only 34 weeks pregnant, and with my gynae saying fervently (he makes this praying motion with his hands every time he says it) that if I can make it to 38 weeks, he would be very happy, meant I would be on bed rest for another 4 weeks. And if I delivered then, I would go on my maternity leave, which was another 16 weeks! So I would be out of action from office for least 20 weeks. Sometimes, I think my boss and colleagues curse themselves for having me as a colleague, as this is not the first pregnancy-related complication I've had. It so happens I also have a very kiasu, trigger-happy gynae who prescribes MC liberally to be on the 'safe side' and safeguard every pregnancy. My husband, who often thinks I work too hard (my work is not stressful!), had also insisted in the past on enough MC to tide me over the first trimester, which is often the tricky part. I must say, this is the first time I have had MC for the last trimester of my pregnancy, which goes to show every pregnancy is different.
You may think that, since I wrote my previous post, I would take this opportunity to slow down and contemplate the deeper things in life, or just to prepare for the third addition to the family, but alas no. I have been bored out of my mind lying in bed most of the day, and being unable to leave the house much, I can't even do much packing or housework or go to the library to stock up on books. So I have been logging on to my work computer a few hours every day to settle the "important" stuff, and playing with my kids while lying down once they are back from childcare. Recently, I have taken to heading out to the neighbourhood centre for meals and doing some light shopping, and doing a spot of baking. It has been more than a week since I have been put on bedrest and only now have I gotten down to blogging again (which is my way of thinking more deeply about things). So it goes to show. It takes a while for a speeding train to slow down :P
Ok! I have almost finished two really awesome books, with loads of practical applications to my daily life. They are:
(a) Einstein never used flashcards: How our children really learn - And why they need to play more and memorise less
(b) The meaning of marriage
Let me talk a little bit about the first book.
Recently, we have been feeling guilty that we have not sent our kids to any enrichment classes at all, and having 2 kids who are aged 3 and 4, that seems a bit old not to have attended any (except the few sessions of Zoophonics which my elder son hated and we pulled him out soon after). At that time, we also discovered some free enrichment classes in early June, to interest parents in sending their kids over the June holidays, so we brought our kids to two such classes - an art class for very young kids, which was quite hard to find (most of them want kids above 4 plus), and another was a Japanese method of training the right brain of very young kids called Heguru. I guess it is similar to Shichida, which also uses flashcards, and trains photographic memory, but it is clearly different and according to the founder, relatively new to Singapore.
When I attended the free introductory lesson for Heguru, we were treated to videos of kids in Japan who had been trained under this method for years. What they could do seemed out of this world. It was like they were aliens from outer space. Some kids could do "wave reading" whereby they just flipped through a book really fast (think of flipping fast enough to get little cartoon figures to move), and after doing it a few times, they could write down in a fair amount of detail what the book said! They could also make up complex structures out of plastic cups really fast, and point out the number of dots on a paper flashed before them really briefly. I thought it looked like a freak show, but my husband was duly impressed and signed them up for a month's worth of classes. I asked the founder, who was conducting the introductory lesson, what were the life outcomes of these kids, and he said rather evasively that they did not track them. Personally, I was also thinking, so what if a kid could speed read like that, that could take a lot of enjoyment out of life! I mean, how were they going to find enough good books to occupy their time if they devoured them that fast! He talked about how by showing them flashcards really really fast, they were forcing the kids to switch from their left brain, which processed things more linearly, to their right brain, which could process things much faster. But by the time a kid reaches a certain age, they are unable to access the right brain as much (cue scary music for parents!). Hence we have to expose our kids now. In fact the younger the better (e.g. 18 months).
Well, it was so coincidental (or maybe divinely arranged?) that right after the class, I wandered into a children's bookstore in the same mall, and my eyes alighted on the book with the title "Einstein never used flashcards". I laughingly pointed it out to my husband, who replied "not many kids have the intelligence of Einstein". *Roll eyes*
The following week, they attended their first lesson and I sat with my younger son while my husband sat with my older one. My jaw dropped at how fast the 2 girls were talking and flipping through the flashcards. They were showing pictures of so many detailed things that I never thought of exposing my kid to - constellation names, pictures of famous paintings from a certain artist, landmarks in Germany, addition, subtraction and even multiplication, and even sang songs to them in a different language. They also made them do origami, when clearly my 3-year old lacked the fine motor skills to fold anything in a straight line. One kid kept screaming and crying and had to be brought out of the class after a while. The rest just sat there and either looked a bit shell-shocked, or started getting distracted at some point.
As I left, I stopped my the bookstore and bought the book, as I could not locate it in the library, and my curiosity was killing me.
As expected, it ridiculed the need to train kids at a young age to memorise letters, numbers, and names of famous painters, as memorising a lot of facts did not equate intelligence or understanding. It also said that kids who went to more academically-inclined preschools faired no differently in terms academic performance from those who went to more play-based preschools, except kids who went to the former were more anxious and stressed about learning. And it talked about how it was more important for parents to talk to their children in their daily life, or talk to them about what was happening in the storybook, to ask them questions, and to answer their questions, so that they learn in context, rather than memorise a lot of random facts. Talking frequently to our kids also helps them make sense of things that happened to them, and builds their emotional intelligence and resilience. And we can do many things to make reading and math fun. Like asking them about what the characters are feeling and why. Entertaining their questions about what they see in a book. Making them count their favourite toys, or share something, or giving them an allowance starting with really small amounts (nothing teaches math like money!). I must say my kids sometimes like to ask so many questions when I read, it takes a while to get through a page. But according to the book, we should relish such interactions!
And it also talked about the importance of giving them both convergent toys (where there is only one right answer, like a puzzle), and divergent toys (where there are many possible answers, like lego or blocks), to stimulate their creativity. And to give them time for free play, so they learn to entertain themselves and come up with things to do (an important skill in adulthood!) instead of always relying on videos or a screen to do it for them.
And not to praise them for their intelligence (guilty!), but for their effort; not to go wild with applause when they get the right answers (guilty again!), but to value their approach in solving the problem or arriving at the answer. Because it is their willingness to make the effort, to persevere, and to apply the right approaches, that will help them solve future problems. Praising them for intelligence may cause them to fear getting anything wrong, and being pleased when they get the right answer may produce more rote-learning than real learning.
All very tough lessons for me to apply, but in a future world where information can frequently be obtained via a search engine, the ability to amass and retain large amounts of information may not be as important as the ability to organise the information and to think critically and creatively.
Lastly, I reflected on my own childhood growing up. Funnily, my Grandma took care of me during my preschool years, and she was always too busy doing chores to bother with me. This meant I spent a lot of time lying on the living room sofa, watching TV or staring at the ceiling. One of my favourite pastimes was apparently washing my hands in the kitchen while talking to myself! I also eventually made up imaginary characters that I would talk to (including a younger sister) and when I started reading, to writing my own stories. My mum and dad were too busy working to play with me. And according to the Einstein book, having an imaginary friend was a sign of creativity in a child (think Calvin and Hobbes), and yet I suspect this often arises out of a lack of companions (Calvin didn't have any siblings, just like me) and boredom.
Hence, maybe our job as parents is much simpler than it really is - we just have to talk to our kids when we get home, read to them, give them both convergent and divergent toys, and limit their screen time so they can have a chance to be bored :)
And by the way, my husband didn't bring our kids to their third Heguru lesson, cos even he was starting to doubt the ability of my kids to absorb what was going on, and my older son was falling asleep in it! The art class, however, is another matter. We signed up for another 12 lessons this week as we were so smitten by the art work they were bringing back (see below), and as the teachers were providing us with good feedback on the relative abilities of my sons (younger one has better fine motor skills and more patience, older son is quick to finish and starts running around). I guess sometimes, old-fashioned hobbies are best.
Younger son's art
Older son's art
