Planting and waiting
Today was an amazing day for three reasons. Firstly, Samuel and I created our first book. It is a short story about our trip to the Zoo today. The story-writing was unplanned but thankfully I happened to have taken some nice photos, so we wrote three pages, laminated and tied them together with a piece of ribbon.
 |
| Samuel was the one who wanted it made into a “book”. |
Secondly, I taught Samuel how to say and use the word “Amazing”. Actually I did not know that I had taught him that, until he used it a few hours later, in a remarkably apt situation.
That leads me to the third reason. In the late afternoon, we made a little paper Police car, compliments of the Singapore Police Force’s Crime Prevention education booklet. After that, Samuel told me that he wants to “make the Police car so tall” and started cutting from a piece of paper.
I did not understand what he meant, till he finished his little “project” two hours later. Apparently, he had wanted to create a little platform for the car. He had cut out 6 square pieces of paper, and pasted them together to make a little box which served as a platform to raise the car higher.
The “Amazing” Samuel and his little creation.
Then Samuel said : “Amazing”. When I saw the Police car resting comfortably on the platform which he created, I was astounded. I said : “Wow! You are so good!” and reached for the camera to take a picture of it.
“Amazing?”, I thought, recalling in that split second that I had taught him to pronounce that word just hours ago, repeating after the recorded voice on the tram at the Zoo. For a second time, I was astounded.
I have always believed that language acquisition is natural and has to be ‘caught’. This means that it is extremely difficult to teach it. We just need to keep exposing the child to the language, showing him how words and expressions are being used in different contexts. With Samuel, this process is long and tedious. But today, I had the pleasure of seeing him pick up the use of a new word. It encourages me to keep going on.
Seeing his creation of the platform also assures me that the sparks of brilliance I sometimes see in him, are neither imagined nor delusional. He does have his areas of passion and talent. He pursued his little project with great intensity. It took me a much longer time (and much stronger threats) than normal to get him to the dinner table. After dinner, he went straight back to his little project. Whilst normally, he abhors being left alone at home, he had no objection to me leaving him at home while I sent Elias to his tuition class. When I came back, he was done.
It is a joy and privilege to observe and discover a person’s gift and destiny, especially when that person is someone whom you love more than your own life. I read this quote just recently:-
“We cannot just ‘construct’ a perfect human being. Young people must also ‘sprout’. We must plant and wait, and we must have faith.” (Lawrence Kelemen)
Today, I saw what looks like a sprout. Today, that faith in me was strengthened. So I will continue to plant, and to wait.
