Lessons from the box of crayons

"... Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of the river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point." (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude)

Imagine this is your world. The world of great unknowns, of all the magical things, of all these possibilities for discovery. Imagine nobody is telling you what to do with what, what will 'work best', or 'be easier this way', or that 'it should be done this way'. This is, I want to believe, what all artists and scientists do daily - discover; explore; wonder; test; hypothesize; try again and again... and this is what we admire them for.

Recently Pawel bought Antek a box of lovely beeswax crayons. The boys then came home, Pawel showed Antek what was in the box, and put the crayons with his other toys. Where they happily stayed, forgotten, for the next three days. Now, weeks later, the crayons have been around for a while, Antek takes them out now and again and uses them quite a lot in his play. He has not drawn a single dot or line. In our house, crayons are not for drawing. Not right now, at least. What are they for? Now, did you know that:

1. Crayons roll when thrown on the ground.
2. Crayons roll faster when thrown on the ground, than when placed carefully and pushed lightly.
3. Crayons roll faster and in one direction when put on the ground and pushed hard
4. When thrown, crayons may roll fast, but not always in the direction intended (this may also result in lost crayons, misplaced crayons, wet and dirty crayons)
5. Rolling rocks (sic!)
6. Crayons looks lovely when put on the floor, but much more impressive when put on a box, one next to the other (the effects often produce applause)
7. Crayons make a very good sound when you bang them on the floor
8. Crayons make an excellent sound when you bang them on the fridge door
9. The sound when crayons are banged on the pillow is not exciting at all
10. Some crayons float
11. Crayons are not delicious
12. Pink and red crayons look lovely when put  next to herbs in the garden
13. Blue crayons not so much
14. Crayons don't really fit into the box they came in. No matter how you try. (They do fit in the bowl though, perfectly)
15. The cat in the garden is not happy when crayons fly in his general direction

When I told a friend we will not really be 'teaching' Antek what crayons (and other things) are for, she was surprised. 'It's like trying to break in, when the door is wide open' she said. 'He will learn to draw eventually anyway.' Sure he will. The important point though for us is - HE will LEARN. WE won't TEACH him. And also - when he's ready he will. And I want to be there to see the smile on his face when he finally DISCOVERS that crayons make colourful marks on things (and I will make sure to do what my Mum did - cover the walls within Antek's reach with paper).

Be careful what you teach. It might interfere with what they are learning.  (Magda Gerber)

There are oodles of recent studies that have demonstrated, over and over again that children are more creative, more involved and more persistent when allowed to EXPLORE toys without instructions, than when told what to do with them. We see it daily.

In our house, now is not the time for drawing. Now is the time for rolling, throwing, pushing and pulling. The time for drawing will come. But in the meantime, its a lot of other learning that is going on.

When you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself. (Jean Piaget)

In all of this crayon business, I can't help but admire how creative and resourceful our son is. How much he is like a scientist or an artist, or both, in his explorations - in experimenting, discovering, hypothesizing, testing...

We admire creative thinkers. We admire their ability to think outside the box; to put old things to new uses; to come up with innovative solutions. We are amazed how some people are ahead of their times in their view of the world. We want our children to be all these things in the future... why not let them start now?

[somewhat related, very thoughtful and wonderful posts from Janet Lansbury and Teacher Tom]

Do less, have less...

We have been snowed under. With the beautiful white silence outside and the thought of upcoming Christmas, I have decided to look through all the things we have accumulated when our son was on the way, and then never (or almost never) used. As always - it turns out there is a lot to pass on to friends, family and fellow freecyclers.

My husband and I are (proudly) not ones to give in to the pressure of commercials, we usually laugh at the 'must have's of the day, and never go shoppping without knowing what we want. But somehow with a baby in the house it turned out we did exactly what we thought we'd never do - accumulate mountains of things. This time, however, things we really thoguht we would need...

I looked through all the things we diligently put in boxes and under Antek's cot: there are two (!) playmats, baby mobile, a bouncer... the list goes on. Most of it we got as presents. And yes, we took them out of their boxes, we put them on the floor, we loked at Antek playing on the mat, looking at the baby mobile. I admit - we did it all. Three months down the road we realised we never needed any of it, and are now glad we put it away fairly quickly. I don't want to sound ungrateful for all the wonderful and no doubt thoughtful presents we received - we are incredibly lucky to have so many friends who are sharing with us the joys of raising our son. But I feel for all the newborn parents out there who are led to believe that without ... (here put whatever gimmick comes to mind) their child will not develop properly. So we give in and buy. We fill our babies' worlds with toys more stimulating we ourselves could handle, put them in, on and under things. And this is all because we are told our babies 'need' this to grow, to develop, to ...be? Obviously, the first logical question that comes to mind is - what about all those babies who don't have access to these gadgets? What about all those born before the times of babygyms, playmats, mobiles and bouncers? Well... as I know all to well, newborn mum is not one to think logically at all times.

We had known about the importance of observing a baby that Magda Gerber stresses so much, and tried our best to spend time observing our son. We wanted to get to know him, we wanted to see the unique person that he is, what he enjoys and what he doesn't, we wanted to see how he gets to know us. And soon we realised that all the wonderful things we surrounded him with were, well, in the way. Instead of letting him show us what he likes, we decided (unconsciously, but still) what to put around him, and what he should be looking at. For the first three months of our road to parenthood we believed the advice we heard much to often: he 'needs' this. Now that I again pack all those things to boxes to give them away, I know we will not need them for our second child, when we decide to have one. And I wonder if I should give these things to other parents, but then again - we all make our own decisions.

Today looking at my son playing happily on the floor, choosing what he wants to touch, what he wants to look at and where he wants to roll, I was talking to my brother about the importance of being with oneself. It's an important skill. When we are used to doing things, talking to people, listening to the radio, watching TV, reading, thinking...there's not much time for just being with oneself. I have a chance now - looking at my son as he is discovering the world, uninterrupted, on his own - to see how great it is to just be with oneself. So today when all things were done I took time to remember what it was like to just sit on my own, with my thoughts, staring out of the window on the falling snow - no radio, no talking, nobody asking me to do anything, showing me anything. It was great. I'm so glad I let my son do the same.