Danny ChaiThere’s this 2 year old at church, let’s call him Ryan. He’s got a fairly pronounced bowl haircut. Anyway, this guy draws a simple picture of a face with a huge bowl cut, shows it to Ryan, and asks him, “who’s this?” And Ryan responds, “Wyan.” Absolutely hilarious. I guess you have to see the picture to understand. Anyway, the guy later draws the same picture again, kind of bigger, and again asks him, “who’s this?” And he responds, “Big Wyan.”
I dunno, that absolutely amazed me. I just find kids fascinating. What’s going through their heads? What’s their basis of communication and friendship? Watching kids play is the most interesting thing for me. Just, how the heck are they interacting?
Anyway, Ryan’s response just amazes me. Like, it takes a lot of cognitive understanding to respond like that. One, he needs to recognize what the picture represents. Two, he needs to have a conception of what he himself looks like. That’s a big deal, right? Self awareness? Not just self awareness but self… conception? Dunno how to phrase it. And then he needs to put it together. I dunno, that just absolutely fascinates me.
I think that’s why I like playing with kids so much. I’m a regular Piaget I guess. I just find the way kids think and interact fascinating. “Big Wyan.” That killed me.
Another thing. What is it that kids like about being read stories? This same kid had me read him a bunch of stories. Do they just like the pictures? Or do the words matter? He brought me this one book that had way too many words so I started out literally just saying “blah blah blah” while turning the pages. Eventually I just made stuff up. But yeah, he was still interested. So what interests them? Why do they need to be read to at all? Why not just look at the pictures? Fascinating.