I went to meet my seven year old son's Kannada teacher at school. This was the first time I was meeting her, even though my son has been under her tutelage for more than a year now. I began the conversation by saying that we are not native Kannada speakers and that even though I can read Kannada, I have trouble speaking it.
She stopped me short and said "The first thing I tell parents is that they should not go about advertising their lack of knowledge in front of their kids. This demoralises the children into thinking that even when their parents have difficulty with a subject, how will they surmount it?"
I saw tremendous sense in her words. So whenever my son has any query, I have decided to say " Lets find out..."..
5 comments:
this is good. i am very happy to hear such nice accounts of school teachers! i totally subscribe to this view although there are times when i just want to stop answering questions and say, look girl, i just don't know!!
anyway looks like its time to learn you some Kannada!
i am also trying to pick up another language - Marathi - must get hold of those learn in thirty days books!!
Those thirty days books hurt the eye. Especially because the dravidian & devanagri prints are tough to read in such small fonts, and quality of paper is bad. For Kannada I stumbled on this wonderous book called Kannada Kannaadi - its a pretty serious book as it progresses, meant for those preparing for lenghty dissertaions on south indian languages etc., but it somehow made me not feel intimidated by the squiggles and jalebis.
Moreover I have placed orders from this website, which also carries Marathi books. Give it a shot - they seem kid friendly! http://www.prathambooks.org/order.htm
hi airpsy, here from kbpm's.
one of our friends here in london heads pratham UK and has given loads of read india books to my 7-yr old, both in hindi and english. they are really good!
really you can read and write Kannada now?
Of course I can! i learnt telugu (to read, not talk) when my parents lived in Vizag. Essentially I hate it when I cannot comprehend signboards, shop names, localties etc. So if that means i need to learn the language, i go to any lengths.
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