Small Words

I started tutoring young readers a couple of weeks ago.
This chocolate is my first “teacher’s apple”

These kids are too much! They are so smart.

The little girl who gave me this candy taught me more than I taught her. She showed me sometimes you have to unlearn to understand. During our first hour, she asked me why I turned her workbook upside down to read it. “Why is it upside down??” she says and I was as confused as she was.

Well, it turns out, the answer is laughably complicated (You can read about Level 2 visual perspective-taking here and here). It took social scientists many manhours and countless years of schooling to remember that there was a time when they didn’t know “why it’s upside down”

It’s upside down because when I changed the orientation of the workbook – I changed both her perspective and mine. For me, the book is now right-side up! Now I can read it and she sees it “upside down.” So simple a five-year-old notices – too complicated for us adults.