Think big
Can a bee sting a bee? Why do cats always
find their way home? How are dreams made?
And where does ‘good’ come from? I
stumbled across these questions when I
picked up a book on my daughter’s bedside
table: Big Questions from Little People and
Simple Answers from Great Minds. A
fascinating read, the questions in this book
show me how naturally inquisitive children
are, how eager they are to enquire and make
discoveries. In passing this week, I asked a
Year 7 pupil how his work was going and he
reported things had got a lot tougher this
term and with a smile he said, “But that’s
really good.” That was music to my ears. Our
pupils should be challenged by the work –
what is the point in it always being easy?
What we need to equip them with, though,
are the skills to not give in when the task is
tougher; the skills to think through a problem
and find a resolution; the skills to think
expansively.
Bees can sting other bees by the way. No-one
really knows how cats do it but, like other
animals with a homing instinct, it is probably
to do with the Earth’s magnetic field. In
dreams we go back over things we’ve missed,
imagine stories about what we’d love and
explore the fears we normally put to the back
of our minds during the day. And this often
leads to the concept of ‘good’ which comes
from responsible and sensible thinking about
the effect that our thoughts and acts have on
the world around us. Think big everyone!