Reading, writing
and arithmetic
― All
very well, but don't they have lesson?
When they will learn
reading, writing and arithmetic?
What
lesson?
Even
more lessons?
What do you think
they have done so far?
Is
there a more important
lesson
than play?
As for writing,
reading and arithmetic,
they don't need to
learn it, because they
have already mastered
it long ago.
They learned it
without realizing
they were being taught.
The entire
"curriculum"
was hidden in the
games.
This is one of the
key tactics:
learning without
realizing that you are learning.
Only "in
passing".
Your main interest
is the game, but "on the side" for the needs
of the game perhaps you
must read, write or calculate something.
Well, you do it,
without being distracted
from your serious
occupation, the game.
Writing, reading
and arithmetic are the very useful tools
that you need for the
game, not goals in themselves.
The girl who
painted the "adventure in the frozen north" perhaps
wants to write a
message on the snow, to be read by the other
members of the mission,
who are following in the balloon.
If she can't
manage it herself, another child will "in passing" help her,
without interrupting
his game, or if necessary she will ask the assistant,
who
"accidentally" at this moment just passes by.
And the other one
with the beads and the secret code, he has to solve
a very difficult
problem of reading, writing and arithmetic, to convert the
words of the message to
a succession of colours in the necklace, which
will be given to the
Indian chief.
If he has
difficulties, then, "the council of elders"
must come from the camp
to help him.
And if they cannot agree on the
correct solution, then this is the
"golden opportunity" for the teacher.
She will pass by
"accidentally" to see "why all this fuss",
she will open up the
discussion asking for each child's
opinion, so that the
whole class starts to pay attention
and then she will
"let them alone" to find the solution
through discussion.
When the
discussion is over, no one, neither the composer on the
xylophone, nor the
constructers of the space station, or the Indian
chief, who will all
continue their work, that means their game, would
have realized that they
had just attended a very serious and very
difficult lesson about
writing, reading and arithmetic.
When all children
are tired, the teacher will gather them around
her, to tell them a
story or to read them something from a book.
Perhaps about the
adventures of the
Peary mission to the
North Pole.