JIGSAW OF THE WORLD

i love to observe silently when iza is very focused ...

throughout the years, i find her scraping together in her mind her own jigsaw puzzle of the world ... tracing and fitting together ties between geography, ecology, history (especially chinese history) and people ... i would wait patiently to see her finding the knots in architecture, art, music, film ... in her map, one day.

i need the patience,

i need the strong will

to keep silent.

iza, you take the lead, i will follow.

A glowing globe ... sea animals reveal when the light is on ...

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her little collection on atlas of the world

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The label under "The gentleness of being a mother" will be a series of sharing on raising of my child. I'm a bit nervous when i was asked by a tender mama on sharing this ... in reality, i always feel weak and lost, and still searching on how to be a mother, a companion of my child ...

As reading a beautiful post by Kenza, i'm enchanted by her conviction on sharing between such beautiful ties knotted across the world. A little sharing is tying a tiny knot in spreading the gentleness of being a mother ... Thanks to Kenza for sharing this wonderful art of "Messenger with a Letter". Thanks to Ayshik mama.

This first post is about my reflection on the role as mama ....

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RETHINK EDUCATION

Thanks dear Fei An for your recommendation! I watched this interview of luanke 卢安克. (click on to view the video)

卢安克 is a volunteer teacher in a remote village in China. To me, he is a teacher of life. There are a lot of inspiring materials in his blog, deep thoughts on education. He has translated into Chinese a number of books by Rudolf Steiner which are free to download. ( I yelled when I saw this, not because it's free, because, it's rare. Rare in the sense that Steiner's works, no matter in press or print, are scarce in HK. When I calm down, I think free is a clue. Free is to spread the message across this land ) 卢安克 has provided we Chinese such a valuable source on Steiner's ideas on education and an incredible important message on bringing up our children.

And,

I have come into this inspiring video: Oudoor Preschool - Norway.

I would love to share these, especially with parents and teachers in Hong Kong, though I don't know how far will it reach within this tiny piece of land.

IMPRESSION 2

,Hong Kong - scaffolding

"... it is not half so important to know as to feel..."

Rachel Carson's words keep whirling in my head.

and,

these days,

these words,

just come straight into my heart ...

"... three qualities are essential if the relationship with the child is to be alive and, in the true sense... The first is imagination, which transforms the intellectual content of one's teaching into a language of experience that speaks directly to the child's soul; the second is courage for the truth of world realities; and the third is a feeling of responsibility toward what is truly human in the children entrusted to our care."

Rudolf Steiner

to feel and to enliven imagination ...

to keep alive a child's inborn sense of wonder...

to truly serve our darling child...

reflections on experiencing anew daily life...

I come to recollect some fragments,

record some unrelated impressions...

It is what this IMPRESSION series is about ...

a visual note on a non-linear process of restoring of my paralyzed senses.

Impressions ...

they are pictorial feelings in my mind.

A book : HONG KONG POP UP

SENSE OF WONDER

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Just receive a book - THE SENSE OF WONDER by Rachel Carson.
A book I'm waiting for ...
inspiring writings and photographs.
Some beautiful words from the book:
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" Arouse the emotions ... for the foundation of learning is in what we love."


"A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength."
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"... it is not half so important to know as to feel... Once the emotions have been aroused - a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love - then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning..."
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"...exploring that world that is old and ever new."
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6M baby iza
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Some days ago, I came across this wonderful book from a post by The habit of being.
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STRAW INSTRUMENT

Iza's kindergarten teacher tries to introduce children with some simple science experiments, hoping that parents and children would find it simple to explore in our daily life. After 2-3 weeks exploration in school, children are asked to work out something with parents at home and present their experiment at school.

Iza decided to make a straw instrument with 50 straws.
Eventually, we've made an instrument of
7 x [ d r m f s l t ] + 1 x d´ = 49 + 1
We used transparent straws for all [d]s, white straws for other notes.
Visually, iza learnt multiples of 7.


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We've developed other forms...
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Iza was so keen on inventing something ...
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On the way of experimentation, papa ziggy had found some interesting videos on the web for making straw instruments ... It's not only inspiring to iza and also to myself. You may search under
www.youtube.com
on topics:

- straw instrument
- straw oboe
- vegetable instrument (Broccoli ocarina - Mary Had A Little Lamb)
- Hydraulophone
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This is another interesting site :
www.sciencetoymaker.org

Under "QUICK AND EASY" - Snake Chamber's duck call, we can find videos on:
- Build a Reed Instrument out of a Drinking Straw Part 1
- Make a Reed Instrument from a Drinking Straw Part 2
It is an instructional video starts with an introduction about how the author got interested in reed instruments when he was living in Bangladesh, country in South Asia. This is a great project to make with groups of kids. It only takes a straw and scissors; a hole punch--and earplugs--are optional. He makes the case that even our vocal chords act like reed instruments: rushing air causes them to vibrate and create sound.
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The process

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I wish to have stronger wings.


A little bird by iza

puzzle
desperate
suffocate
strangle

aspiring
amazing
whimsical
liberal

I'm swinging from one extreme mood to the other.
As a "coach" to our design team and "mentor" of iza, I experience a significant difference in advocating different minds which are predominated with different habits of thinking.
Some are so passive in listening, perceiving, retrieving, questioning, expressing, knowing ............
I'm EXTREMELY curious on how one perceives information, how one's brain works, what governs one's inclination towards his/her way of employing his/her knowledge ...
Iza's mind is still free from set frames. It's so bountiful when talking, creating, inventing, day dreaming, arguing ... with her. We always get inspired and provoked. I'm keen on knowing how to "prevent" the loss of a free [ no traffic jam ] mind ...
Still searching...
Maybe some insights in
www.newhorizons.org/neuro/markus%202.htm
www.newhorizons.org/strategies/front_strategies.html



" Habit is a cable. We weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it"
Horace Mann

This is Zippy.
Not Ziggy (Papa).
It is the ever first soft toy I've made for Iza.
Zippy is a character in a programme "zippy's friends" held by iza's school.
It helps young children - 5-7 year olds - to develop coping and social skills.
It is currently running in 11 countries.
www.partnershipforchildren.org.uk/zippy-s-friends.html

Bruno Munari

I’m fascinated by this little book
Cheating Time - Bruno Munari the archeologist.
(Thanks to Tien of Modernchild for introducing Bruno’s books to me.)
I cannot stop thinking of an Imaginary Archaeology Museum.



In 1948-1950, Bruno and his son started a game - an intellectual adventure on using reconstruction and observation methods associated with archaeology to “act like an archaeologist”, producing “his” Fossils of 2000, illegible writings by unknown populations… They carried out the digs in Capo Milazzese on the island of Panarea, a prehistoric village of 3,500 years ago. They collected bits and pieces, trying to imagine the entire object and the ancient inhabitants.

When I was still in the design school, I always dreamt of having a summer job in an archaeological site.
There weren’t any chance. There are rarely remains in Hong Kong. I never tried to find out why I had such a thought. Now, I know. It’s because of booming of imagination behind traces, concealed clues behind fragments. I’m allured to the life of the past and the unclear. Sometimes, the images of dragging interior scenes under flickering candle lights were so vivid, and the scent of burning wood…
When I stood in the town center of Milan, I was embraced by buildings over 200 years. From the visual of rounded stones on the road, I could hear sound of horses tramping. In Hong Kong, on the same piece of land, buildings were knocked down and rebuilt for 3-4 times in 100 years. I only have slim imagination to the past. Ringing in my ears are the sounds of digging, drilling and those of heavy machines. Archaeology Museum can only exist in an imaginary form.
I wish I can pick up rubbles by the side of asphalt road and able to identify it’s a remains of 1920’s or 1950’s … just a joke.

This letter, I picked up by a dump on the street side of Barcelona 20 years ago, once drove my imagination on. I was told (it was translated by my friend once but now I lost the transcript) that it was written a hundred years ago about the first night Barcelona had electric lights on. The joy behind this fascinated scene stroke me most. The glitter must have given those people faith and promise of the future.




From this little book,
there are interesting insights.

At the Natural History Museum you can see the remains of some unknown animal, put together to show how it would be if alive. Using the same principle you can not only build animals for the Museum but “imaginary Objects” as well putting together bits of unidentifiable odds and ends. Amazing!
Bruno Munari

The “Fossils of the year 2000” are found buried in methacrylate ( as opposed to amber) and they aren’t insects (even though they look like them at first sight) but the inner parts of radio valves (remember them/) expertly modeled by a contemporary operator.
Bruno Munari



The fossilization process conserves things from the past for the future.
Bruno Munari

To myself,
To iza,
To our Imaginary Archaeology Museum,

Explore “mysterious remains”
Admire “relics”
Associate random fragments
Imagine the entire story
Form a new way of thinking and seeing
Create new meaning in ordinary objects

It must be a fun adventure.

CREATIVITY

Just unpack a postal parcel. It’s "The International Handbook of Creativity", I’ve ordered from Amazon. After 18 years, my interest returns to creativity again. "Creativity" was the subject of my final year essay.

18 years ago, I related it to Tao. Actually, this was not relevant to me; it was just an extension of my tutor’s interest. But, today it reveals quite differently.
Before, I "take off"; just note down my current conception on creativity. This will be reviewed after a few months or a year...

"Creativity is a habit, a thinking style and a life attitude.
It is a thought or behavior neither bounded by norms nor against the norm. But it is scaled against the norms. Creativity is a deviation to the norms.
Creative energy flows when your senses awake and become acute. It runs vertically and horizontally, it hops, it dashes around. It is autonomous. It shouldn’t be stopped or shaped. Visual images and sounds accompanied.
Creativity is not an excuse to not being non-practical. The realization of a creative idea demands the most originality and creativity. Courage is in its position to overcome the anxiety of unknown, uncertainty and failure. Convergent thinking is in charge of outlining feasibilities.
Many times, there are back and forth evaluations… like a loop.
Creativity is driven by passion."

Today, I’m moved by the vivid imagination of a child. This evokes my curiosity on development of children.
Noting somebody formerly without pre-set values is now in the process of shaping by set norms, social values and conceptions. The child’s queries on our world are so provocative. They will ask things that we are long accustomed to. Our senses become so blunt.

Recently, I've read something on child rearing.
Cherished.
Content courtesy of
http://www.tamomolt.typepad.com/

About Home Schooling
An estimated 40 000 in France the number of children who receive instruction in their family (IEF), a figure rising steadily… The "family culture" is the departure of instruction in family…
The curiosity of the child, the passion of the adult, the need for ground circumstances are most conducive to the award of expertise and know-being...
No award of points, competition, just the time, desire and presence.
The ideal learning
…The child knows why he was questioned; he awaits the answer to fill a need: the external constraint is replaced by intrinsic motivation; the child is at the heart of learning. Frequently learning is autonomous and independent. Parents are discovering the likings of the circumstances and dialogues, the knowledge that the child is appropriate by itself. The reasoning of the child is learning its own tree and creates connections and links between facts, learning, which we usually classify materials in separate property. The instruction in family does not categorize knowledge, it is the child who assembles and cuts their learning itself depending on its interests and reasoning... One hears about learning cutting: EFI practice it daily. Cooking is to make the chemistry but also math and biology at a time! In the IEF, there is no judgment placed on the activity of the child, game or work. For a child 2 years to mount a pyramid of cubes is a serious business. Similarly to 10 years to mount a hydraulic system in the creek with a mill and a dam is a serious business. According to the view that it poses and attitudes adopted the activity becomes the support of an exchange of knowledge and source of research rather than just "a child's play." The child discovers himself by physical laws, he experienced was questioned, encounters difficulties and adults may propose to seek solutions with him, replies: visiting a true mill, watching a story on Dams under construction, talk to a person working in the area, searching the Internet, go find a book library .... Then you can approach the major waterworks in the world (a little geography), the evolution of techniques (the history of technical progress), problems related to water shortages or floods (history of peoples, recent news).
Parent’s pedagogues
The adult is attentive to the child, it is listening, takes the time to be with him and learning offers of interest particularly…
The emotional bond of family and require resolutions of the conflict so that each and every one is happy to live together…
Circumstances of life can coerce, or choice of the child to live this experience...

This book is very inspiring.
I want to share it long time ago.
But,
simply post the cover is not enough...
think over and over.
Maybe start with this.

" That exuberant curiosity is children's most important learning asset..."

"Unfortunately,
kindergarten for us,
and for most of the generations born in this century,
was a distortion,
a diluted version of what originated as a radical and highly spiritual system of abstract-design activities intended to teach the recognition and appreciation of natural harmony.
Kindergarten's universal,
perfect,
alternative language of geometric form cultivated children's innate ability
to observe,
reason,
express,
and create."

"...childhood is a sacred period of human development,
that the child's own empirical explorations are the engine of the expanding mind..."



I'm obsessed with blocks.
Below are pictures inside the book.



And, these beautiful blocks are from the other sites.

Today, I start to take a Reflective Parenting Journal as recommended by iza's mentor. It's to identify & differentiate what my expections and iza's expectations are, especially those triggering stress.
(I still don't know whether I'll put the journal on the blog...)
Together with iza is always amazing "seasoned" with some "crashing".

Sometimes, she's so tender & sweet.
This is shared by iza's school teacher (she's wonderful & sensitive) the little chat between her & iza yesterday :
" I never know that there are so so so many works for a teacher. I'm so tired. I want to give up..." Her teacher pretended to be very frustrated. (They always make fun with each other, but this time iza was very serious.)
" Don't give up. Remmeber you have told me not to give up? If you are tired, have a rest. You can work things out slowly. You will be more comfortable." Iza said gently.
We are not expecting iza to response in such way, because she is always "nasty".

Iza does not compromise easily, and, she has difficulty in following rules.
Remmeber when she was still 3, she has stated clearly that she didn't like any toys with instructions. She only likes things like plastic clay. She always creates her own sets of rules on every issue. Even on the very traditional games, she creates new rules, changes them along the way... think that everyone understand her spoke & unspoke rules... It will be a diaster if we misinterpret her meanings...Sometimes is fun, sometimes it is very difficult.

Last Saturday, we volunteered to sell sticky flag for a charity. On the way from school to the destination, iza was having fun playing with one of her classmate. The girl asked iza to sing with her. Iza said that this was no fun. She suggested her classmate to cover her face all with sticker flags. Then, asked the others to guess whom she was. And, told them, " I am a nut! " They both laughed. Though I think iza's idea is more funny, she did not suggest that she would take part.
Is she always rejecting the others' ideas?
Does she always make fun on others? I wonder...

Recalling another incidence. When we visted a primary school a few weeks ago, we attend presentations from students. After a presentation of P5 on the topic of persuation, their teacher asked them if their maths teacher gave them 50 questions as that day's homework, how should they persuate the teacher? Most of the students said that they would show their past works to proof their capability...
Iza whispered to my ears, " Tell the teacher it is too much, they need to use calculator. "
I'm deeply impressed by iza's idea...yeah... give us more, then I'll use calculator...otherwise I cannot be able to finish such a nonsense task...yeah...I elaborated this in my mind...
At the same time, I can project that iza would be more difficult to handle by teacher...

I always have mixed feelings on iza.

Iza starts Lego class since this August.
The first 3 lessons, she needed to build objects according to instructions.
She loves Lego. But these pieces were too small for her.
She could not grab the single units & hold them firmly.
She could not manage to stick the pieces together.
And, she found reading instruction sheets difficult.
On the 4th lesson, she was allowed to build her own piece!!
She always wants to create.
After one & a half hour, I was invited to see her creation.
The above was her first created piece. It was a 3 storey bus.
It was built of 12 identical pieces.
Every 3 pieces piled into a bigger piece.
There were 4 big pieces.
They were only connected by a single rod.
Therefore, the 4 pieces could rotate separately.
Then attached the 4 wheels.
The middle 2 pieces were serving like see-saw.
When one side was lowered, passenger could get on.
Then,the passenger would be raised to the top of the bus!
When she found that the passeger was difficult to sit on, she added a yellow piece on the top to stablize the structure.
Then, she tried to add more wheels...
I think I cannot make a more simple design that serve so many functions.
This bus can go onto rocky roads because the 4 wheels are attached separately to the vehicle.


Her second creation.
In some classes, there are no final products.
She is just exploring how the parts of Lego works.

It was a triangle - a musical instrument. She created it this Monday.