We need not teach them!Allow your child to not learn this summer
Learning as a goal can in itself be a hindrance or limitation. To quote HERMANN HESSE from his book ‘Siddhartha“When someone is seeking … it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything … because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.”
It is not very surprising, that when we ask children “what you learned?” – we get few responses;
but when we ask children “what you enjoyed?” – we get a bombardment of excited sharing.
Our son 5yr old showed interest in Tabla and wanted to learn Tabla. He stated learning form a teacher. The teacher in his urge to send my child to the stage started pushing him:
- Play properly and play so many times.
- Practice else you will not be able to go to the stage.
Soon he lost interest “I do not want to go to Tabla class”
We wish the teacher had only focused on enjoying the tabla. But perhaps he is normally surrounded by parents who have a lot of expectations and that is why over years he too has started pushing children to learn. We hope more parents and teachers would realise that the moment the monster called “have you learnt it” pops his head, many children simply get turned off.
If you watch children – they do not do things to learn something. They do things because they think doing this would be enjoyable. And soon the learning within that also becomes enjoyable and they learn. This summer is a great time to let this inherent learning happen.