Teaching and Learning “The beginner expert”

When my kid was about five years old, he was the younger of my two kids in which the brother is starting to be able to do math and is proud of it. Yet the family was very relaxed about math and none of the children had been pushed into worksheets, drills and practice and nobody was pushing my younger kid. So I was taken aback when one Sunday, out of the blue, he said to me, rather aggressively, “I can do math!” I said in surprised, “Well, sure, I never said you could not.” There was no point in challenging him. Clearly, it was humiliating to him that he could not something that everyone around him – as far as he knew, the whole world – could do. Why add to his humiliation?

This reminded me of something that my younger kid did, when about two years old. I saw him playing Lego bricks. He was picking up handfuls of the bricks and building in his own way, drunk with excitement and joy. I could see that he was getting his own pleasure out of them, taking in information about them through his eyes and his own hands, gradually exploring their possibilities. At the time, I felt I had to start him off “learning” something, seeing that his building was “going nowhere”. So, in what I supposed was my low-pressure way, without even saying, I took some bricks and began to make a pattern of them, thinking that he will soon imitate me. I proudly built a low structure, and I thought my kid would imitate successfully. When I finished, I looked at him. He looked at me for a while, expressionless. Then, without saying a word, he came over and with knocked the little building over. Amazed, we just looked at each other. Stupidly, I persisted, and build another structure. Again, he destroyed it, looking not angry but determined. Then, I left, but later when I came back, I saw my little boy playing with the bricks his own way.

I know that our kids can be greatly inspired and helped to learn by others who can do better than the kid – especially of teachers. But, these two events made me realized that we ought to remind ourselves now and then that sometimes adults can be altogether too much an expert. I must have this awareness that sometimes my showing in my superior knowledge and competence, our children’s ignorance and clumsiness are often painful to them, and I must be careful not to rub their noses in their own weakness.

I suppose just as true of teachers. One of the reasons why our students learn well from their peers and seniors may be, not just that the other understands the subject nor can speak “the student” language, but that the other is more a helpful “expert” to the student. No doubt it is exciting and inspiring for our students. But with day to day classroom examples, “being the expert” all the time is probably less useful to students than someone whom the student see “as slightly better than he can.” That they can learn from someone who is ranked like beginners themselves in learning.