Learn Through Play

A treasure map of memories here, translated…

Every Time the Adults Asked, “What Did You Learn in School?”, I’d Always Told Them Matter-of-Factly, “to Play”, and After a While, Nobody Ever Asks Me This Question Again, Besides, Going to School, is Learning How to Play……..

• A Satisfactory Grade

In Hakka, the pronunciation for “school” is hog gau, meaning play.  And so, school became a place, where we learn how to play.  Every time the adults would inquire, “What did you do in school?”, I’d always replied, matter-of-factly, “hog gau”, and, after awhile, nobody asked me this question again.

And still, learning to play, was truly, very not at all, one bit easy during our era, back then, we had to get tested to get into middle school, and, during the class time, the teacher would have a plastic pipe at hand, and when we couldn’t answer the questions, “show me your hand”………this, was very difficult for me to cope, because I’d always believed, that school is where you learn how to play.  I had fallen ill, and, just never quite caught up with the academics since.

there’s more to life than just studying during the college years…

One day, my teacher came for a home visit with my test papers, and inside of our small living room, there was an assortment of aunts and great aunts, after my teacher told them the class scoring order of students, she’d pointed to my score, and asked my mother.  While I was so uneasy, taking peek at my aunt who’s laughing secretly my mother started, “My daughter is not healthy, and she’d performed, up to my standards already, please don’t punish her, to blame her, she would know what she needed to do.”

Holy!  My jaw dropped, my mother who’d always been unreasonable to me, had said such wise things, I watched her, in disbelief.

Twenty some years later, I’d gone to pick up my daughter in kindergarten.  That day, there was only my daughter who was reading a book, and a little boy who was crying hard.  The teacher had the textbook, and asked the little boy, “the bear lives one floor up from the rabbit, the kitten next door to the bear, what floor does the kitten live on?”

a balance of extracurricular activities is necessary…

“Wah!”, the little boy started wailing again.  I’d told the instructor immediately, that this little boy lives in a separate household, not an apartment building, so he couldn’t have gotten the concept of three-dimensional buildings.  The teacher was furious, she took out a graded test, asked me, “We had a quiz on phonetic spelling today, your daughter made an eighty-five, are you pleased with her grade?”, she’d shocked me so, I’d immediately replied, “Yes, yes I am satisfied at the grade she’d made!  When I quizzed her at home, she didn’t even score as high!”, the look of surprise on the teacher’s face made me recalled that teacher who came to my house for a home visit with my graded exam too.

Many years later, I’d wondered, if I’d asked the school teacher to be stricter with my daughter, to turn her eighty-five to a hundred, how, would she have turned out now?

My daughter loved to doodle since she was younger, she wants to become a comic artist when she grows up, but she knew, that her grandfather wanted her to become a doctor, so, she’d, amended her dreams, hoped that she could be a doctor during the daytime, and, a comic artist at night. We understand, how as she was painting on the canvas, she was actually, de-stressing.  After she graduated from the arts department, because she’d taken up 3D printing, she’d started working at a dental clinic, to help print out the molds, and, aside from her job, she’d also published her comic columns online.  I’d laughed at her, that what she did, was a sort of medicine related, she’d fulfilled her grandfather’s dreams.

• l Play Through Four Years of College

A few days ago, my son had his exhibition from broadcasting major, the students went on stage, to share what they’d gotten out of the courses, they’d talked about how during the planning time of their exhibition, they were all so very busy, to the point, that they couldn’t go home, the parents had something to say.

A student who’d cried her eyes out told, “My grandmother asked me, ‘Huei, weren’t you planning on becoming a newscast, why are you so busy?”, I’d not known how to reply, just told her, “Grandma, you don’t understand!” I’d hoped that they could come to my show this morning, but they’d only said something insulting to me.  And all I could tell them was, “Fine, then you don’t have to come.”  She’d, stopped for a bit, then, continued, with that nasally tone, “and, they didn’t show up.  But gladly, my older brother came.”, afterwards, she’d cried, into the shoulder of her friend.

making friend and socialization is important too!

This reminded me how when my child was a sophomore, there were a couple of her older schoolmates who’d started an underground band, I’d asked him, “Is it really wise, to work on your studies, and the band too?  Is being in a band, your long-term goals?”, my son’s replies made me feel ashamed, “actually, all of my older schoolmates knew, that after they graduated, they’d be enlisted and going to work, but, they wanted to take advantage of these four years, to do something that they want to do.  After they’d had enough fun, they will, settle down, serve their service terms, and they would also, set out with their briefcases, with their ties, to work too.”  I think that, would be the true kind of “Playing for FOUR years of university.”

It’s graduating season again, four years ago, I’d hauled that bag of quilt, gone along with my child, to find his dorms, and now, I’d needed to, borrow a pickup truck, to haul everything back home again.  My dearest parents, if you really don’t know what your children are busying about in school?  What they’re learning?  Or what, they do for their off-time and hobbies?  Then, go to their exhibitions, hearing the kids share with you, what they’d learned, from their four years of education, along with how they “learned to play” too.

So, this still just shows???  Oh yeah, you STUPID (‘cuz that, is what you all are!!!) parents should just, STOP nagging your young about what they’re doing in school, especially after they’re in college, and yet, there are so many, helicopter, and Velcro parents out there, zooming in on their kids’ lives, making their kids SUFFOCATE!!!