Saturday, December 14, 2013

Third Thought: Horse Rider

Let me get obsessed with narration. I feel I can argue well enough, but I am not good at retelling events. So I´ll try. I´ll use the past participle and the past continuous in order to paint the past simple.

Last week, I discovered a great tool that will make me a better father: storytelling. I was in my bedroom, with my son, a wonderful 3-year-old. It was our play time. We had been waiting for that moment; me at work, him at home. In my bed, where he listens to daddy read out loud to him, I told him I was going to tell him the story of a horse. I like to make up stories for him. Suddenly, I began jumping like a horse, and baby boy kept laughing; he was having fun. I continued acting out for him. I gave him a role: the horse rider. He became part of the story. He could make choices, good or bad. The good ones, I applauded them. The bad ones, I showed him the inconvenient consequences. If he hit me, I would neigh and get away from him. But if he treated me nicely, I would say to him how much I loved him. Horse and horse rider would also learn daily about the world. 

Knowledge and morality come alive when kids are given the chance to make mistakes in safe environments where nobody would get "that hurt." Through acting, in a fake or the real world, character is built with virtues or vices. Virtues are the good habits, vices the bad ones. That is why, as teachers, we must help students, routinely, face situations in which they have to make good and bad decisions. Progressively, bad decisions will disappear as reason and negative consequences come into play.  


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