Two kids are working on tree house at Aarohi. They began with loads of dreams sharing, ideas, inventions and so on. They spent hours on discussing with each other, what it should what all they will do and how and so on……………………..finally they came up with a design. I did not interfere with their design – it was their creation and all learnings will be their gain and loss.
I asked them to calculate the material needed and give me the exact size of the bamboos they need. They counted 23 nos, each ten feet. I again did not check or any questions asked – why, what, how and so on. I asked “what is the perimeter of the bamboos you need, and even if you give me radius, it will be fine?” This generaeted curiosity – what is what is radius?” As if this was not enough – I told them, if you know the diameter, you can find use the formula of 2pir to find perimeter. What is “pi” was next question?
I said, its value is 3.14 and left them with a calculator. They played with “pi and radius, diameter and perimeter”
This week one of the child came and expressed “I want to work more on radius and want to understand in detail about it”. hmmmmmmmmmmmm I could have opened the text book which carries the chapters on geometry like i did when he wanted to know about measurement. I shoewd math section to him, from where I generally take books and said one of these have chapters on geometry. He went through many books and found.
he expressed with exclamation, “ah!!! I came know what all about is in maths – angel, area, volume…….blah blah!!!! I shared, “this was the whole purpose, now you not only know about what you wanted, but also many other things which you can find by yourself, next time you will not be depending on me to search information on these topics for me”.
Was it push? Yes, in many ways it was. Push works, when the learner sees a value in that, when a learner is wanting to receive more.