Tabula Rasa, Latin for blank slate is the concept that speaks of how people are born without any built in knowledge and how as we grow, the mind builds itself with experiences and perceptions.
I could not have understood this better, if not for witnessing my infant daughter grow to a toddler, replete with exciting day-to-day activities and anecdotes. Here are some
She takes a piece of paper, folds it to 90 degree angle and exclaims, 'Mama, chee, chair!! You want to sit?'
Then another time she asked me for some aata (wheat flour) while I was kneading the dough. Once she had it, she rolls it in a roundish mound, balances it over the marker cap she was playing with and says- hey, Mama, chee mushwoom (mushroom)!' That was clever I thought and wondered where she knew about mushrooms from. I cook it all the time, but never as a whole, so how did she know how it looks? More importantly though, I was intrigues by her handicraft...
Then while we waited at the theatre the other day for the movie to start (the first movie with her in tow) she was playing with a coin and her hair clip. At some point she pops open the clip, holds the coin in it and turns to her dad, to say, 'Pappa, look, pedestal fan!' (she's just learnt about these from our recent use of one at home). That same day earlier, she had also stuck that coin to her forehead and remembered her granny who wears large bindis!
This imaginative correlation is not unique to my daughter (for sure!). I remember how my little cousin Aayushi, as a toddler, would pick up the large Johnson's powder dabba, fling it over her shoulder and ask around if anyone needed a 'celinder' (referring to the LPG cylinder, used for cooking)!
All of this makes me wonder why I can't catch these similarities, make these assumptions, see this pattern in the world around us! And that reminds me how I am 30 years fooler for all the textbook education and the classroom learning i went through! :( I wish I had the gumption to encourage my daughter to learn only from the sights and sounds around us and build on her creativity and imagination! That would make us more perceptive and more human and put us in deeper touch with our inner senses and the feelings of those around us :)
But alas, I am not brave enough!
She takes a piece of paper, folds it to 90 degree angle and exclaims, 'Mama, chee, chair!! You want to sit?'
Then another time she asked me for some aata (wheat flour) while I was kneading the dough. Once she had it, she rolls it in a roundish mound, balances it over the marker cap she was playing with and says- hey, Mama, chee mushwoom (mushroom)!' That was clever I thought and wondered where she knew about mushrooms from. I cook it all the time, but never as a whole, so how did she know how it looks? More importantly though, I was intrigues by her handicraft...
Then while we waited at the theatre the other day for the movie to start (the first movie with her in tow) she was playing with a coin and her hair clip. At some point she pops open the clip, holds the coin in it and turns to her dad, to say, 'Pappa, look, pedestal fan!' (she's just learnt about these from our recent use of one at home). That same day earlier, she had also stuck that coin to her forehead and remembered her granny who wears large bindis!
This imaginative correlation is not unique to my daughter (for sure!). I remember how my little cousin Aayushi, as a toddler, would pick up the large Johnson's powder dabba, fling it over her shoulder and ask around if anyone needed a 'celinder' (referring to the LPG cylinder, used for cooking)!
All of this makes me wonder why I can't catch these similarities, make these assumptions, see this pattern in the world around us! And that reminds me how I am 30 years fooler for all the textbook education and the classroom learning i went through! :( I wish I had the gumption to encourage my daughter to learn only from the sights and sounds around us and build on her creativity and imagination! That would make us more perceptive and more human and put us in deeper touch with our inner senses and the feelings of those around us :)
But alas, I am not brave enough!
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