Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Two-year olds say the 'darndest' things!

A respite from Pi, sorta...

Ok, so I'm a mad crazy proud grandpa (Pop-Pop to be exact) but I could not resist telling the following story (Reader's Digest fare!)...

My daughter is a PTA rep and had to take her two-year old to the budget meeting with the superintendent yesterday. There were about 50 people in the room with my daughter up front. After the superintendent painted a gloomy picture of the needed budget cuts for next year, he asked if there were any questions. Everyone was quiet except for my grandson who raised his hand. The superintendent looked whimsically at him and asked him what his question was. He stood up and asked the superintendent if he was going to eat the blueberry muffin he had in front of him!

The superintendent graciously gave it to him which my grandson devoured in short order. After a few minutes, the superintendent kindly looked back at my grandson and asked, "Do you have any more questions?"  Can you guess the reply?  That's right, he asked if there were any more muffins...

Can you guess how to motivate students like this!




"All Truth passes through Three Stages: First, it is Ridiculed...
Second, it is Violently Opposed...
Third, it is Accepted as being Self-Evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1778-1860)


You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
--from South Pacific

6 comments:

Justin said...

That is spectacular.

Eric Jablow said...

You need 3 cups of flour to make 12 blueberry muffins.

How much flour do you need to make 24 muffins?

Okay--he's only 2. Replace '12' and '24' by 'one dozen' and 'two dozen'.

Dave Marain said...

Thanks, Justin!

Eric--
I think I will test his gastronomical genius as follows:

I will tell give him 7 pennies and place some muffins in front of him. I will tell him that he has to pay two pennies for the first muffin. After he pays me and eats it (should take about 30 seconds, trust me!), I will then put two muffins in front of him and ask him to pay me. What do you think he will do? By the way, this little boy is solid muscle, no fat!

My other grandson would absolutely not be motivated by food. I would have to offer him models of Egyptian pyramids or nebula!

YzW731 said...

I'd just hope that the student would be able to work even without motivation from reward. Dependence would not be a good thing.

But a little once in a while couldn't hurt!

YzW731 said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dave Marain said...

YzW--
Don't take the food motivation too literally! I am having fun with this!

Besides, I may just offer him a couple of M&M's or something organic...