Talent can’t be taught, but it can be Awakened – Wallace Stegner
Ria my 3-year-old daughter today is a world record holder for the “Youngest Person to Identify 196 Countries”. She was 2 Years and 5 Months old when she accomplished this.
So how was this possible? – Ria is gifted with great memory, but then how did she give us a clue of
this talent?
It was the cartoons!!! – Yes – her favourites were “Masha e Orso (Masha and Bear)” and “Peppa Pig” – We had a restricted 1 Hour of TV watching in the evening and she would watch both these cartoon
shows. I and my husband would sit and watch along with her. A couple of weeks passed and my
husband used to mimic the music in one of the cartoons – “Oshooo – backkkkk (Orso Black)!” yelled
Ria. We did not pick it up, so asked her to repeat what she was saying, she said “Appa Oshooo
Backkk”, and we understood that she meant “Orso (Bear), Black” but did not understand why she
said so. That evening we watched cartoon again and to our surprise, the Orso or the Bear became
black after an incident with a BGM similar to what my husband mimicked before.
So, my husband started testing her with more BGM’s and she was able to give the cartoon name,
character name and the scene (related to the BGM) in the cartoon – what astonished us was that,
some of the episodes were new, we saw the episodes for the first time that day. Over the period of
one month, she could recognise the first word of a song just from the BGM (I used to play cinema
music in my car, she picked it from there).
As her parents, we believed that this talent of Ria will become contextually big if it is showcased
differently. But what was that “different” thing? We were not sure. Like all other parents, we
thought of teaching her music not realising she was very young for music lessons. We were also not
comfortable forcing her to do something that would become a routine (Studying, Music etc…), she
was just 2 years and 3 months old.
One day my husband purchased a block puzzle in wood with that of Countries in Europe. As I was
preparing dinner for Ria, my husband was pointing to each country on the puzzle and Ria was
repeating. As he reached about 10 countries, he told Ria that that was enough for now and asked
her to go have her dinner. After her dinner, Ria asked for the puzzle, My husband started naming the
countries rather quickly (marked by lack of attention) to our surprise, she was pointing to each of
these countries, as it was uttered, on the puzzle correctly.
We were able to cover all the European countries in 2 days. What next? – We wanted to aim big. Our plan was to train Ria to show all 196 countries, which will be a new world record. However, we
decided to follow these rules whilst attempting the record:
– No coercing .
– No reprimanding /corporal punishments.
– No Luring (if you do this, we give you a chocolate) – STRICT NO.
The initial problem was getting a world map as big, here in Milan, Italy – It was made to order and
the names of the countries were in Italian. We lost a week waiting for the map to be brought from
India by a friend.
Truths began to unravel on Day 1 –
- A 2 year and 4-month-old is cannot be taught like in school!
- Schedules do not exist – they are too young to concentrate.
- Distraction is a norm.
It was an uphill task – The problem was that it was difficult to get Ria do something twice. If she has
learnt something once then she will never do it again. The next 3 weeks see me have a roller coaster
of emotions, sometimes I will have to place a lid on my emotions and keep myself from brain drain.
The strategy was clear : I will teach her over the day and her father will do the revision in the
evening. After a week, we had a rhythm set and in 2 weeks and 5 days she mastered the map. Wait…the story is not over yet!.
Next step was recording, we had all we needed to record the event.However, we needed a
continuous recording without edits to submit. This looked impossible, Ria was getting distracted by
the camera and the extra lighting. This is when we had to break 2 of the rules – We had to lure her
with candies and a visit to a nearby park. After 3 days of struggle we had a complete recording of the
event.
What is Ria up to these days? She –
– Loves Swimming (Getting trained from 6 months) !
– Mastered All World Capitals.
– Ria solves board Puzzles effortlessly, 104 pieces in 20 to 25 mins.
– Recites Aathichudi Single line verses written by Avvaiyar.
– Recites 27 Shlokas.
– Recites 35 Thirukkural – Tamil Couplets.
– Knows regions and capitals within Italy.
– Can speak a little about gravity,Thomas Alva edison, light bulbs, AC electric motors.
– Writes Alphabets A to Z, recognise Tamil Alphabets, loves crayon colouring.
– Speaks Tamil, some Italian and English
– Helps mom /dad in Cooking!
– Loves peppy numbers and can pull in some dance movements! – fav song Vande mataram
and Amma vendru azhaikadha uyir illayae – Illayaraja
– Cares for Animals – Loves feeding ducks and having Pony rides!
– Loves adventure rides in Theme parks – Giant Wheel is her Favourite.
– Starts her Kindergarden schooling from September 19 2017.
– She wants to drive a car… have told its too early for her .
– New found love – reading panchatantra stories with “Appa”
As Ria’s parents – this journey has taught us lots about parenting –
– A talent need not be big. How the talent is used can make it look BIG.
– Parents should spend lots of time with the Child, get down to their level, literally eye to eye,
you can see their world, spot their talents and help them use it.
– Forcing, Ordering, Requesting can get something done . However,try partnering – you can
help the kid achieve on their own.
– As adults we look at things logically. If we learn something we would like to master it just by
practicing.But Children are different, they are explorative – ALLOW them to be. All we saw
were just countries on the map, Ria saw countries on every other shape – even on a piece of
bread!.
– The best way to teach a Child is to make Him/Her a teacher!
— Gayathri Arun —