It's Not Just About Knowledge But Thinking Habits

------ Promoting my teaching philosophy and books through the "grandkids camp"

This 2024 Spring break was a great chance for me to experiment with my hypothesis --- In the AI era, training children in creative thinking habits is more important than remembering some information or knowledge. 

I  have quit my regular school job and devoted myself full-time to this "grandbaby business". It might be a bit uncomfortable to most traditional grandparents, especially, those who grew up in China, when they hear the response from kids to their instructions often is  "Why, this?" or "I don't want to do that". 

I remember when I was growing up in China as a child, I thought I had no right to question the "authority", the adults about what they told me to do, but obey. 

In this AI era, to make a person human, he or she is encouraged to raise questions;  no question is a dumb question. If we follow this rule, doing this so-called babysitting, then the job is obviously harder than the old-fashioned way. 

Here are some experiments that I would like to share: 

Artist Papa said, "Please prepare the background paint first."   "Why?" the little girl asked. 

My first reaction was that I wanted to tell her not to always ask "Why ?" because many things in the world have no answers. But I explained to her from the technical aspect of painting - It assigns a painting a general color scheme by preparing its background with a color tone. However, I still told her that Papa may not have all the answers to all her questions. In this way, I encouraged her to do her own thinking process when she has a question without discouraging her from asking questions.

"It should be reading as in this way." " Don't interrupt me, Papa." 

One part of her homework was reading loudly the whole book. In the middle of her reading, I made a correction to her, she did not like it. She said the school teacher only requires a parent (or a grandparent) to listen. I asked what would happen if she were asked to read it to the class and mispronounce the word. She told me the teacher would correct her --- I understand the teacher wanted students to learn from their mistakes. The experience of making a mistake in class is a more meaningful learning experience than just gaining the knowledge of the correct pronunciation of one word from parents at home. 

" Let me show you the design of this doll house." " No, Papa. I want to design it all by myself!" 

We as grown-up ones need to remind ourselves, that each occasion is a learning opportunity for a child. 

Regarding this 4-year-old boy, I cannot take him too seriously. However, I have discovered one little interesting thing. Do you see this photo of a posing thumb up? the little boy used both hands, one thumb up and another down. it suggests that even a little child knows the dual nature of reality. When he did this, we looked at the photo together, I asked him: " Is this thumb up or thumb down?"  He smiled but did not give me an answer. It is OK to let a child wonder or be playful. 

We are living in an interesting but challenging world. This world has been changing fast in our lifetime. We may see this younger generation facing a total technological evolution again. We grew up with rotary phones but depended on smartphones for daily functioning in our senior years. Our grandkids' generation may have housework taken care of by AI, need to plan space travel for a vacation, etc. Who knows?

Again, the most important education for the new generation is not knowledge only but creative thinking skills and habits. Good skills and habits can only be easily learned when one is young.  

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