The under age kid

History has a tendency to repeat itself, over and over and over again. I guess that is one reason why it is still taught to people, so they would learn from the past and move towards a better future.

This is also counteracted by the ability of human beings to forget things quickly and get on with life.. the same life that people got on with a few decades ago and by extrapolation a few centuries ago..

It is true that todays Cyclotrons are a lot more complicated that the proverbial "wheel" invented a long time ago, but have we really come that far in learning from history?

People still kill each other, go take things forcefully from others if they lack a certain resource (it used to be gum arabic, silk, spices, gold, diamonds, now it is oil!) and continue to ignore the past.

All that, was the cynic in me talking. This post is more about something happening in our life right now. Jr. who is a November child, just like her daddy, is having attention issues in school. She is an extremely smart and intelligent kid and is easily distracted, just like her daddy and she does tend to walk into the occasional wall, just like her grandma!

We had a meeting with her teacher who gave us a detailed report card for the Kindergardener and said "she has trouble following my instruction. She keeps looking at what the other kids are doing and cannot focus". She went on to explain how she is the youngest in her class and how it is going to pose problems for her because some of her classmates are 14 months older.

San promptly cut in and said "hubby here was in 2nd grade at Jr.'s age". Being the sincere daddy, I went on to explain to the teacher that I had the same problems. I never went to kindergarten and was directly thrown into first grade at age 4 and finished school at 16 and college at 20 and was in gradschool before I could legally drink in the US. I also told her that my social life wasnt exactly stellar because "having no moustache when graduating high school" was an issue, but I never had any problems with academics.

At this point, the teacher must have seen very clearly why Jr. is distracted (talking to her daddy for 5 minutes would explain that) and asked me "so do you have any suggestions to improve Jr.'s focus?".

Daddy said "Eureka! I know exactly what they did when I was in first and second grade". They moved me to the first row so all I saw was the teacher and the blackboard. Nothing to distract me.

The teacher said, well.. in the US, we used to do that only to kids who were troublemakers. In any case we do not have rows in the classroom till 3rd or 4th grade. We have them sit around circular desks in groups of 4 or 5 so they can learn the value of teamwork!

Where do you sit then, and where is the blackboard ? I asked.

Apparently there is no thing like a blackboard and the teacher moves around the classroom as she gives instructions to kids.

Hmm.. let's see here. You are trying to focus on a certain voice trying to give you an instruction and you have to execute on it. This might also involve looking at a piece of paper or an object that is in the teachers hand and you have to do something on your desk based on that. What would be easier. A fixed location for the teacher directly in front of the student or a moving teacher who could sometimes be talking from your right, left, or even behind you..

Bah!!!! I said and walked out.

Really love the teachers, their enthusiasm and their passion.. but I know myself and based on history and some genetic extrapolation, my kid, and there are no surprises on why she cannot focus. First we need to learn focus on stationary targets before we can focus on the moving targets!

Bah!!! Bah!!! Bah!!!

Now I am going to train Jr. Jason Bourne style on how to follow instructions from a moving daddy..

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Those arduous few minutes

It is a daily ritual now.

We wake up early in the morning, brush our teeth and start praying to the god of Cheerios!

Swallow, chomp, bite, chew, fast, quickly, we are late, let's call her teacher on the phone, you are going to the street, please, vaayila kozhakaataiya irukku (do you have dumplings in your mouth), etc. etc. in every permutation and combination you can think of!

All to get a 100 or so honey nut cheerios into that little mouth and make sure they continue their one way trip to Jr.'s stomach. Sometimes, they get a free return ticket when Jr. feels double or triple or quadruple teamed (these days even the little one chimes in with "eat", "eat"!)

We are now switching to honey bunches of oats, idly's, dosai's.. etc.. But at the end of the day, the pushing food into the mouth routine continues..

A picture is worth a 1000 words. This one is worth about 73 cheerios!

Do you see the pain in her face? All that suffering! Oh, the humanity! We should be insane to put food into a little girl! What are we thinking?

After a 40-50 minute session of cheerios pushing, we all smile and she races to school with either Mommy or Daddy.

Maybe I should liquify the Cheerios and make her drink it with milk?

Maybe I should invent a system that lets her stomach absorb food through her skin. I could tie a cheerios pack around her stomach as soon as she wakes up, and it would slowly infuse the cheerios into her stomach by lunch break!

These days they are coming up with medicine patches that send medicine through the skin. So why not breakfast? I am hereby laying claim to the food patch for difficult kids!

If anyone actually succeeds at this, please send me a check.. or at least a few free samples!

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Do you still hold on to your..

Big, Fat, Red...

"Wren and Martin" English Grammar book?

Do you go to sleep happy in the knowledge that this book that created something close to a Stockholm syndrome inside you, is tucked away in a loft somewhere, halfway across the globe?

Do you know in the bottom of your heart, that in spite of going through this book from cover to cover over a three year period in middle school, you somehow thank those dudes who came up with this book for helping you grasp a language that has opened many a door for you, and continues to do so?

Do you get flashbacks of this book on a chapter to chapter basis starting from "The Articles", to "Gerunds, participles" to Precis writing? Are they flashbacks that evoke mixed emotions and you start tossing and turning?

If you are going, Yeah, Me too, that's right!, it is high time you join the Wren and Martin Anonymous club that I plan to start..

We can discuss about our middleschool english grammar experiences..

Do they still use this book in CBSE schools today?

Has this book now changed in thicknes, color, addded authors..let me know! Sometimes, google doesn't tell everything!

Going to have some sweet dreams of subjects and predicates.

Now stop counting the number of mistakes on this post, will you?

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