Congratulations to The Citizen for their many awards. We are extremely fortunate to enjoy top-notch reporting on local, national, and even world affairs. Diego Lopez’s column of October 21 definitely caused me to shout with laughter over “I want Arizona.” But his reports of activity in our state (of New Mexico or Nueva Mexico) of rarified scientific developments are important with regard to our young people’s participation in them. To that end, I want to remind parents and teachers of the need to follow two practices: literacy, and experimentation with real objects.
Literacy begins with being read to and then reading on one’s own. Small children in any culture love listening to stories. If these are in one’s first language, so much the better. Children enjoy finding letters like their initials on a printed page, for instance, as a start to seeing words on a printed page. The experience is a way to keep a family together. Yes, English becomes important and needs to be mastered in order to function in America’s mainstream operations, so it should be used as well. Every skill takes practice, but if the practice is based in pleasure, achievements are within almost invisible reach. Don’t worry about computer time; if it’s balanced by family reading (and other activities) a child will not be hypnotized by “the screen”.
Experimentation begins with manipulating objects, i.e. playing with measuring water or sand in various containers or tinkering with an old clock or other mechanism. Note that theorist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) expounds on this thoroughly, with stages of development for certain age groups. Children are naturally proud of their parents’ activities and occupations. Learning happens by watching and helping one’s parent or grandparent repair the car, or cook or bake, or plant vegetables. It is all in the real world as opposed to computer games.
When I was young, I loved to read, but science and math mystified me. I have two anecdotes to report that changed my attitude toward first, the terrifying Periodic Table of Elements, and second, the confounded mystery of solving square roots.
While riding with my husband to go shopping, I mentioned that the Periodic Table was something I didn’t understand at all. He thought for a moment, and announced, “it’s arranged by weight. First is Hydrogen, a gas, the lightest thing.” OMG. Lights went on, sorting elemental things into groups. Where was silver? Oh, far along in the pattern because heavier than hydrogen, oxygen and the gases. Plus, he told me, each element has special sub numbers and letters that identify its place in relation to the others. Water. It’s not an element, but it sure is elemental to survival. It is a compound made up of two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen. As such, it is magically versatile: it can rise as air, flow as liquid, and harden as ice. Not a whole lot of other compounds can do this. I was hooked not only into science but also into the sacred thing it links to: life on our earth.
Second, I love to play at crossword puzzles because I love words. Also I love to do bookkeeping because its patterns of numbers.make sense. One day I was bored with how simple both of these habits are, so I decided to find out what square roots were about and how to solve them. I looked in a basic mathematics book I have, and darned if it isn’t simply a matter of estimating, of a given number, the highest actual square root or roots that fit evenly into the number, and then doing the same thing with the remainder even “unto” fractions. Plus, mathematicians have a whole table of larger and larger square roots that they can refer to to start estimating! Who knew? Another revelation came when I caught on to Algebra as a language, one that defined complicated math relationships. Like our reading languages, Algebra needs attention and practice to learn its symbols. I needed these overarching definitions to understand and appreciate what were mysteries to me.
These are, for children, the beginning of literacy, whether scientific, numeric, or alphabetic. Playing with them leads to expertise and the joy of discovery, and ultimately, helps them participate in the advanced developments Diego wrote about for New Mexico’s future.