Hello -
I've been corresponding with Daniel Vareika, a parent in Uruguay, who has been playing with Squeak with his 7 year old son. I asked his permission to share his comments and observations as I thought you might find them of interest. I think many of you have/will have similiar experiences with your children. I am sure Daniel would appreciate your comments, too. cheers to all,
Kim
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 11:32:38 -0300 Subject: Re: Buying book and DVD From: Daniel Vareika dvareika@redfacil.com.uy To: Kim Rose kim.rose@squeakland.org
Dear Kim,
The day before yesterday and yesterday I was able to start playing with my son, Gaston with Squeak. Right now he is on vacation (here it is summer) and he was with my wife on another city next to the beach (I had to remain working).
From the experience of this past two days I only can tell you that we..
LOOOVE SQUEAK!!! Even my son jokes about both being Squeakers!!! It really helped a lot the book "Powerful ideas.." and the DVD was excellent for me to wholly understand what is Squeak about and used for.
My son didn´t like much the DVD (he thought it was a game, not a movie) and latter on was impatient with the book, because he wanted to build a car right away.
From this little experience I have several observations:
I have found that on one hand, my son being only 7 (he will be on 02/07/2004) and not being very fluent in reading (both in English and in Spanish - still need more practicing) nonetheless he was able to start all by himself, at least painting the car and finding his way around!!
Latter on, I found that wanting to make things (like in a hurry) doesn´t help much learning the big concepts, he has too much hurry wanting to achieve things that he has seen on the DVD!!!
Still I was really amazed how quickly he picked up concepts like x and y axis positive and negative numbers (a little more difficult) and the concept of building scripts (I don´t know whether he understand the concept of connecting objects or finds it to be completely natural).
Still what I see is that he learns more buy doing, maybe not fully understanding the concepts like connecting two objects, and knowing his way around, more buy knowing what this button does than buy reading what it says.
We encouraged him to explain to my wife the concepts that he has learned so far and he did on the other hand beautifully though he lacked vocabulary.
Summing up:
a) On one hand he is truly learning by playing. b) On the other he might be too young to show sometimes some patience. c) He still has a little difficult in reading both in his native tongue and in English. d) It is difficult to see him seat still on a chair that swings in front of the computer and one is not sure how much attention he is paying. e) He is young comparing the kids on the DVD (7 versus 10). f) He remembers things by position, not by what it says. g) He seems to be in a hurry.
Question:
Sorry this mail is kind of a mess... Am I doing the right thing?
To be truthful, being a teacher of adults is one thing, trying to teach a 7 year old is another, and being him my son probably another.
On one hand I love how quickly he is going, on the other I am afraid he will learn "nice tricks" like a monkey but not "concepts".
Please let me know what you think about. Your input is invaluable to me!
Yours,
Daniel
Kim Rose wrote:
Hello, Daniel - I am delightged you have received the DVD -- I hope you and your son enjoy it! best regards, Kim
squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org