George Counting

It's fascinating to watch children learn. Last night when James was avoiding our dinner guests at all costs he took out his current favorite book (Curious George Counts from 1-100) and began reading it to himself on the couch. He had only ever met our friends once or twice, and he was still in the initial phase of acclimation (don't make eye contact, don't answer any of their questions, pretend that they aren't in the room, and make all communication in a hushed whisper) and hadn't yet reached stage two. (Demand all of their attention, babble incessantly, show off his wordly goods, and violently protest any suggestion that they might not stay forever)

"Has he memorized that book? It sounds like he's in there reading it to himself?"

"Yes," said J proudly, "he's only had it out of the library for a few days and he can pretty much do the whole thing by heart. He's a sponge for books."

The truth is, he hasn't yet learned how to NOT memorize books. When we read him something he likes, he wants it to be read over and over again. And then over and over again some more. For a long time it was George Car Wash, then George Hospital, George Birthday, and George Ice Cream all took turns. Reading different books for most kids is something of a learned taste. I think most of them want to do what James does...to repeat the same experience over and over again and get lost in the rhythm of the text, the sound of their parent's voice, and the familiar illustration.

The technical term for it is mimesis. The way that our world (or at least the old Western world) treats reading tends to steer us away from mimesis. Formal schooling teaches us to read with a certain set of purposes, and most writing is done to accomodate those purposes. George Counting is blatantly biased towards teaching James a bunch of facts. (Namely, the order of numbers between 1 and 100.) This is probably a good thing, since his current counting order is 1,2,6,7,8,9,10,12.

But James, still being two and not having learned our way of learning, reads the book mimetically. He memorizes not just the words, but the cadence of the words as they are spoken. When George rides a bike, James gets his bike from the bedroom and stands with it. When he sees George's fire truck, James gets his fire truck. James isn't reading a text about counting, he's acting in a play.

I've given a lot of thought to our schooling strategies. We've made some choices that are very much in line with the way that we were educated and some choices that diverge sharply. (Usually in an effort to reach back several hundred years, not to jump forward.) Sometimes though, when I see my son reading and learning and thinking "in the wild" and using a mind utterly different than the type of mind I'm going to attempt to mold, I'm deeply frightened. But I suppose this is part of the terrifying adventure of parenting--he's been born, and we must teach him something.