Simple Machines

While waiting for our second August Moon performance the children played with these Yoga like mats. Except they are slightly stiffer so you can make walls and castles out if them. While I was looking at something else, Noah placed two chairs and created a bridge with the mat.
"Now cross over Dai Dai." He said, thinking this would really work.

"Stop!" yelled Jing.
"Are you kidding me?" yelled Heen. The children froze before their attempt but it was unclear whether they would continue.
If Jonah walked across he would of course fall through.

In fact it was kind of comical if it weren't dangerous.

He could hurt himself by cutting his lip on the chairs if he fell wrong.

But actually, I sort of wanted him to do it. Noah and Dai Dai didn't understand that the mat wouldn't work. But how does one find these things out? It's not just because they are young, because as I think about it, adults have done things like that too. There are plenty of stories of Chinese villagers first coming n contact with firearms, trying to defend themselves by covering their ears, or opening an umbrella. If you don't know, you don't know.

But I suggested using something besides human life, especially Dai Dai's human life for the first test.

Noah got mad and started crying and said only human testing is a real test.

So I ended up placing Jonah in the middle of the bridge and allowing him to "fall" through, except I was still holding him.

This idea that kids have to learn, not the hard way, but through safe experimentation occurred to me again when the next day we went to the park to shoot bow and arrow. Noah could not find the middle of the bow, something that I could do fairly easily, or at least better than him, despite my not knowing much about archery either.

So I used the first basic stick form move, or that concept to help him find it by balance. Interestingly, he did not naturally understand which way to move his hand to balance the bow. Basically where to put the middle of the see saw, the fulcrum, the center balance point. He would find the wrong spot and then to correct it, he would go in the wrong direction, and then as a second try he would go in the wrong direction again so that it seemed obvious that there was much more stick on one side of his hand then the other. Then he got angry and would yell at me.

This was frustrating because it seemed like common sense. It made me question what I knew as a child. I have memories from childhood but they are through my adult lens. So I don't know how ignorant I was of the world around me. But I do have some memories as an adult, even recent ones, that seemed less obvious, but as I thought it through I realized what may now seem obvious.

In fact I could also see other adults struggling. To adults you can explain. But to children, perhaps sometimes it is best to stay out of the way or show them. Or maybe to adults you should just leave them in ignorance unless them knowing somehow benefits you, i.e. they are your student.

For the mat, I also showed them some other structures in the school that were made of harder board and reinforced by by 2X4's but they were still upset over the initial reaction. which came from a fear for their safety for a long time.