August 13, 2023 • 56 mins
Diving deep into the realm of global parenting, we're thrilled to share with you our enlightening discussion with Cornelius Grove. An author and ethnologist, Cornelius opens a new window into the fascinating realities of child-rearing in five traditional societies without schools. Remember, it's not just about schooling; it's about moulding the future, and these societies offer a unique perspective on it.
Ever wondered why children in traditional Indian societies are more adept at household chores? We explore this and more as Cornelius leads us through the intricacies of child development in these societies. We touch upon the crucial role of mothers, and the physical environment, as well as the indispensable role of extended families. Moving away from the norms of modern societies, we delve deep into the shared responsibilities of traditional families in teaching morals and manners to children.
As we navigate our way through the complexities of parenting, we unearth the concept of Learning By Observation and Pitching In (LOPI). A rather effective technique in traditional societies, LOPI is a stark contrast to the individualistic values of modern societies. And here's the crux - even as we shift towards individualistic values, family farms in traditional societies continue to offer rich learning opportunities. So, as we close this episode, it's time to question - what can we, as modern parents, learn from these traditional societies to aid our children's growth in this rapidly changing world? This episode promises to stir thought, incite curiosity and perhaps, even inspire a change in perspective. Tune in!
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Other-Children-Learn-Cornelius-Grove/dp/147587118X
How Other Children Learn: What Five Traditional Societies Tell Us about Parenting and Children’s Learning
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
ISBN-10: 147587118X
ISBN-13: 978-1475871180
Available from Amazon.com and BN.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, welcome to Rebooted Mindset, formerly
Rebooted the Podcast.
I'm your host, alita Hernandez.
Come join me every Wednesdayand Sunday afternoon at 2.30 pm
Eastern time to hear real-lifeconversations with experts
around the world on how we canheal our body, mind, soul and
spirit.
So let's get talking.
(00:22):
Hi everybody, alita Hernandezhere Rebooted the Podcast, and
Simon O'Tellis C will be airedon Western Magazine as well.
I am here today with anotherfabulous guest, cornelius Grove,
an educator and author of anAuthority of Parenting Children
(00:42):
Across Cultures.
So it just sparked my interest,seeing that I'm bicultural.
Somebody told me that the otherday, you know, because I'm
Puerto Rican first-generation,born in New York, and we're also
Americans, so we're notmulticultural but bicultural.
So there's differences on, youknow, raising children and
(01:06):
everything like that.
So I'm curious on your take onthis.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, hello, alita.
I'm glad to be here today.
Thank you, I'm talking to youfrom Brooklyn, new York.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Where are you?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I'm in Fort Lodoto, florida, right now.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh boy, I bet it's hot down there.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Oh, yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's also hot up here .
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's hot everywhere.
Yeah, I'm originally from NewYork.
I left in 1987 from New York,so I've been gone for a long
time.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's a great place to be, I think, New York.
That's just my opinion.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Right.
We all say that when we move tothe left, oh Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So I was just turning up the volume so I could hear
you a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh, okay, no problem.
So you're an educator, I see,and you have been teaching high
school.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
How far are we going back?
I taught high school in themid-1960s.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I haven't taught high school since then.
I've done some universityteaching at Columbia University
and at the New School University.
They're both here in New Yorkand at Beijing Foreign Studies
University, which is in, ofcourse, beijing, china.
(02:39):
You said that I'm an educatorand I am an educator.
I don't disavow that at all.
My doctorate is in education.
But these days I prefer to saythat it's more accurate to say
that I am an ethnologist.
(02:59):
Now, it's easy to getethnologist mixed up with
ethologists.
There's just one letterdifference.
An ethologist is a scholar whostudies animals.
Okay, I'm very pro-animal, butthat's not what I am.
An ethnologist is a scholar whocompares and contrasts cultures
(03:23):
, and that's basically what Ihave been doing as an author and
as a scholar for well over 10,12 years now.
My previous two books, all of myrecent books, are published by
(03:44):
Roman and Littlefield.
My previous two books verysquarely compared the cultures
of East Asia, that's, china,japan, taiwan, korea, hong Kong
and so forth, with Americanculture with respect to
children's learning in school.
(04:06):
Well, it's not that those twobooks are closely related to
each other.
I call them sister books.
Those are not the books we'rehere to talk about today, but
I'm ready to talk about themanytime.
So both of those books werevery, very squarely about what
goes on in classrooms and howthat might be how our experience
(04:32):
here in the United States mightbe improved in terms of how
well our students learn inschool classrooms and how well
they retain what they do learn.
But for this book that we'rehere to talk about today and
that's this book here I decidedI wanted to take a break from
(04:57):
looking at school classrooms bythe way, I'm working on my fifth
book now and I'm right backinto school classrooms but so my
break lasted there about threeyears.
I wanted to see what was goingon with children and parents in
(05:20):
societies in which there are noschools or in which schools are
just beginning to be introduced,and so that's what this book is
about.
We're looking at children about.
Just about everything goes gonewith children in these five
(05:41):
traditional societies, otherthan that they go to school,
because either just a few ofthem go to school or there
aren't even any schools anywherenearby.
And they couldn't possibly go toschool.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And you believe that that it's 2013 and there's still
places that have no schools?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Quite a few.
So maybe I should tell you thefive societies that I looked at.
Now let me just say that.
So the question arises well,how did you decide which
traditional societies to look at?
(06:20):
Yes, I don't know if I actuallysaid these are I looked at.
So I looked at what's generallyknown as traditional societies,
also sometimes known asindigenous societies.
Okay, 40, 50 years ago weprobably wouldn't have blushed
to refer to them as primitive,or at least one or two of them.
(06:43):
But we don't do that anymorebecause that has overtones that
really aren't accurate and thatare prejudicial in some ways.
So we don't use that wordanymore.
Traditional is a much morerespectful term, and indigenous,
of course, has a specificmeaning that they were always
there.
I've been there for not justdecades, but hundreds, maybe
(07:06):
even thousands of years.
So the five traditional societythat I looked at oh, I was
going to say how I chose them.
Well, first of all, I want to beclear that I did not go to
these societies myself and visitthem and have a look.
(07:26):
I didn't have to do thatbecause anthropologists have
already done that.
In particular, I'm interestedin a field of anthropology
that's generally known as theanthropology of childhood, so I
(07:50):
had to choose societies thatwere traditional or indigenous,
on the one hand, and also inwhich anthropologists of
childhood had gone and livedthere and done their research,
which is generally known asparticipant observation.
(08:11):
That means that they basicallyshow up and move in and they
live there and they get involvedand they make friends and they
learn how to do.
You know, one of the mostdifficult things, certainly from
my perspective, is they learnthe language.
(08:33):
Sometimes they're able to learnthese languages to fluency
before they get there, but othertimes no.
So that's a huge thing, atleast from my language challenge
brain.
I have great respect for thatDo?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
you speak one language only.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, I've studied.
I did my doctoral dissertation.
I did a great deal of it inPortuguese.
In those days, which is quite afew years ago now, my wife and
I had lived in Portugal and wehad studied Portuguese, and so I
was able to do quite a bit ofthe interviewing, although this
(09:19):
was all in the United States, inMassachusetts, where there are
a lot of Portuguese people.
I was able to interview studentsand parents and schools
administrators and teachers whenthey prefer to speak Portuguese
.
I was able to interview them inPortuguese and those interviews
were sometimes quite long.
(09:39):
But when it came time for thoseinterviews to be transcribed
because I had recorded them,that was really beyond me.
I hired a real and actual,truly bilingual person to do the
transfer.
I also have spoken a littleChinese.
I've also spoken a littleSpanish, oh, and it took three
(10:05):
years of German in college.
So I'm not unfamiliar withlanguages, but right now I have
to say right now I'm monolingual.
But I think if I moved back toPortugal or Brazil, I'd begin
picking it up pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Right, the immersion when you immerse yourself in the
language.
That's the only way you don'thave any choice Exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You want to get your breakfast.
You got to ask for it.
So I had to find, anyway, I hadto find five societies in which
anthropologists of childhoodspecifically of childhood had
been there, lived there and comeback when I say lived there,
(10:46):
sometimes for more than a year,and then come back and written
about it in books and in journalarticles.
And I had to be sure that thefive societies that I wanted to
deal with in this book, that Ihad sufficient information, not
just one anthropologist, I hadto have several.
All right, I didn't want torely entirely on one, so the so,
(11:10):
and, as good fortune had it, Ifound five, and each one is on a
different continent.
So the first one I want tomention and is, you know, the
first of the five chapters isthe Aukka hunter-gatherers of
Central Africa.
These are hunter-gatherers.
(11:30):
This is pretty seriouslytraditional.
No schools anywhere.
They live in the forests ofAfrica and you know, you might
say the jungle, and it's a very,very different life than what
you or I, or probably anybodylistening to this program, have
(11:53):
ever lived.
Certainly applies to me.
I mean, I was a boy scout, butthat has nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It has nothing on them, that's for sure.
They're out there with thelittle little outfits and the
spears right and they're outthere like well, when they go
hunting they have some spears.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, that's true.
And so the second society wasthe Ketchuas of the high Andes
in Peru, and the picture on thecover of the book is of three
Ketchua girls.
That was taken by ananthropologist who spent many,
(12:33):
many, many months with theKetchua.
They live at an altitude of12,000 to 16,000 feet, and
things are pretty barren upthere, you know.
So they got to worry aboutgetting breakfast, lunch and
dinner as well.
So where does that come from?
(12:54):
The third one that I want tomention is be more familiar to
at least a name to most of yourlisteners, I would think and
that's the Navajos of our ownSouthwest.
A great deal of anthropologicalattention has been paid to the
Navajos.
The fourth one is the villageArabs of the Levant.
(13:18):
Now, I know that not all ofyour listeners are going to
immediately know what I meanabout when I say the Levant.
The Levant refers to, if youcan imagine in your mind's eye
where Israel and Palestine andLebanon and Syria are.
Well, that's basically theLevant, the eastern end of the
(13:41):
Mediterranean.
And now the people?
In that case, they were livingin houses in small villages, but
they were the heirs of theBedouin nomads.
The Bedouin nomads are anotherfascinating group and I really
(14:05):
had hoped excuse me that I couldfind enough anthropological
studies of children among theBedouin nomads that I could make
the nomads themselves thesubject of this chapter, but
that was not possible.
However, these people that Idid look at, who have been
(14:26):
studied quite often, are theheirs of the nomads and they
maintain many of theirtraditions.
And the fifth group is the Hinduvillagers of India.
Now, india is a very, verymulticultural place.
(14:49):
When we hear about India in thenews, we are hearing mostly
about big things.
They do a lot of work incomputers and plenty of India is
highly urbanized.
But there certainly are partsof India, many parts of India,
where people are still living atraditional lifestyle.
(15:11):
They are not living in urbanareas by any means.
They're in small towns out farfrom the urban centers and they
have been very heavily studiedby anthropologists.
The children and the parentshave all been very heavily
studied.
So those are the five societiesthat I looked at.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So what were you looking for?
These different societies,these five societies you were
trying to find out a differencein between how they're learning
versus American learning?
Is that?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, I just said, look here's.
Here are five societies inwhich the children either don't
go to school at all.
Their parents, the older peoplein these societies almost 100%
have never been in a classroomas a student.
(16:09):
So you have a society thatstill remains largely illiterate
.
That is beginning to change.
We all tend to think that's agood thing, but after you look
at five societies like I did,you begin to say, well, this is
(16:30):
a very mixed thing.
Literacy is good in some waysand in other ways we have to
think about it.
Anyway, I wanted to see what wasgoing on.
I'm not sure I went in with a.
(16:51):
Yes, I was under contract witha publisher who published a
great deal for educators, and Iam an educator, and so I wanted
to look at education.
But here's the interestingthing Education, the real
meaning of education, does notmean schooling.
(17:15):
Education is a much, muchbroader term.
That means child socialization,child children growing up.
How do children growing upbecome adults?
(17:37):
Think of all the things thatthey need to be able to do,
learn how to do as they getolder and older and older all
kinds of social norms and valuesand expectations that people
(17:58):
have in a traditional society.
It's extremely important thatthey are able to contribute, to
contribute their labor and theirknowledge and their expertise
to simply having enough food onthe table, day after day, month
(18:20):
after month, season after season.
I think this is one of thethings that really impressed me
about traditional societies, andthat is so, so different from
our society.
We just nip out to thesupermarket, pick up what we
(18:41):
need, come back home, it's inthe fridge, it's in the pantry,
we're done.
I mean, we have to prepare it.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Right.
But we have a lot ofconvenience.
We have so much convenience.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And when you get into traditional societies, like I
did in order to write this book,I just so impressed with the
incredible comfort andconvenience that we have in our
society.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So I tell you.
So I was raised.
In the summer I was in PuertoRico.
My grandparents were livingthere.
So as a little child after myparents got divorced, I would
spend three months of the yearthere.
I lived in New York City andthen I spent my summers in the
country, in Puerto Rico.
So talk about two differentends of culture.
So first started going there.
(19:42):
It was rough because I'm a citygirl right, I'm a city girl.
I have supermarket, I have.
So now I'm in the country.
So now I learned.
So I learned a lot of thingssince I was alone during the day
with my grandmother.
She had a farm.
I used to feed the chickens, Iused to take care of the, to get
the eggs from the chickens inthe morning, go pick up fruit
(20:02):
from all the trees that we had.
And even till this day it hasmolded me who I am, because I
walk around South Florida andit's mango season.
I'm picking mangoes off thetrees and coconuts.
I'm coming home with a backpack.
You know I look what I got like.
I went foraging in the forest,you know.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, this, this is a great example.
This is a great example becauseone of the thing that really
stands out about children intraditional cultures is that
even at a very young age, theybegin to assist and support the
family in getting the food it'sneeding, storing the food it's
(20:44):
needing and in other ways,helping to take responsibility
for the survival and even thethriving of the family.
And that is such an importantthing to look at and understand
that I devoted an entire chapterto it.
(21:06):
You know American parents, Iwould imagine I've read accounts
from other cultures too, likeone sticks in my mind, from
Italy, for example, anotherhighly industrialized,
technological culture.
Parents have a lot of troublegetting their children to pitch
(21:30):
in to assist around the house.
Well, you know what Traditionalparents don't.
Now, why is that?
So I, I, you would have askedme this eventually, but the
question arises well, what canwe, what can we?
Look at these traditionalsocieties and copy and bring
(21:51):
into our society, and my answeris generally nothing.
There's much more to say aboutnothing, but there is one thing
that, and the reason there'snothing is because the
circumstances in which they liveare so utterly different from
(22:12):
ours, and the not, not just thephysical.
You know what they look at whenthey look out the door of their
house, but even the way thefamilies are structured, and
this is something that you mightbe able to relate to as well in
your own experience.
So what, what?
(22:37):
What happens with the childrenas a generalization and I
emphasize to you and to yourlisteners that I'm very aware
that I'm speaking ingeneralizations and not every
single traditional society isexactly like this Nevertheless,
you look at a lot of traditionalsocieties and I've read, as I
(23:01):
was getting ready to write thisbook, I read many other things
that were about societies otherthan these five, and I read
things that anthropologists hadwritten in general about
traditional societies, and youcan generalize to a considerable
extent.
What happened as ageneralization is that when a
(23:23):
child is born and until it'sweaned, it receives incredibly
intense attention from itsmother.
The father isn't usuallyinvolved so much there are
exceptions to that but themother, you know the child is
(23:44):
pretty much with the mother, 24,seven, nursing on demand, etc.
Etc.
But when nursing is over,something happens which just
doesn't happen in our society.
At that point, the parent'sattitude is it's not my job to
(24:05):
raise this child, not up to me.
Well, okay, who is it then?
The answer is this Another verycommon is that the child is
(24:26):
given to the next oldest sibling.
The next oldest sibling girlspreferred or a cousin is
responsible for the child, notjust sort of responsible, while
the parent runs off to thesupermarket, not as a babysitter
(24:50):
, but as the 24 sevenresponsible party for this
child's welfare we're talkingabout, if they have diapers,
changing diapers, cleaningbottoms, putting down for naps
or you know, just whatever.
Whatever's going on, andwhatever's going on isn't
(25:12):
necessarily like what's going onin our society.
The other thing that happensand these two things can happen
together is that the childbecomes a member of the
children's group of the smalltown or settlement or camp where
this family and some otherfamilies live, and the children
(25:38):
form a group, a mixed age, mixedsex group that has the run of
the area.
Are they supervised by your?
Many of your listeners willwant to know.
Well, they have the run of thearea.
What happens here to the adults?
Do the adults take turns?
(26:00):
You know looking out for thesepeople, and sure they're safe?
No, they don't worry about them.
Well, what about?
These aren't?
What about if the kid picks upa knife or gets too close to the
fire.
It's not the adults concern.
The children have to learn thison their own.
(26:20):
Maybe their sibling, you know,gives them some advice, or maybe
they just learn.
I mean, there's accounts in theliterature of children, you
know, 14, 15 months old usingquite a large knife to get some
food off a branch, or somethinglike that.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, I've seen that on YouTube.
I've seen all the cultures thatthe children are Like.
There's one online that is alittle Asian boy and he's
cooking and he must be threeyears old or four and he's see
him cooking on the block andhe's I mean, he did a whole meal
.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Like adults, don't know how to cook.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Well, the adults know how to cook, but they.
This is one of the ways inwhich he is contributing to the
welfare of the family, andcontributing in very meaningful
ways, in ways that are useful,in ways that take the burden off
the adults.
Here's the really interestingthing about, here's the really
(27:24):
interesting difference and Ididn't discover this, but I
certainly saw examples of it inyou know, as I was learning
about these five societies.
In American society and otherhighly industrialized western
(27:47):
societies, the benefits flowfrom the parents to the children
.
We give children things, wegive them toys, we give them
protection, we give them a placeto live, we give them a room of
(28:10):
their own.
If we're one of the cultureswhich we think, children have to
have a room of their own, bythe way, that's rather unusual
when you look at all cultures.
So the practical benefits flowfrom the parents to the children
.
The children are on thereceiving end.
The parents are putting outtime, energy, money and anxiety
(28:37):
to see that this child grows upcontent and happy and has a good
childhood, and so forth and soon.
Give, give, give, give, give.
It's just the reverse.
In traditional societies, thebenefits flow from the children
to the parents.
Why is this?
(28:58):
Because to raise their own foodand do everything that needs to
be done to ensure the securityand the sustenance of the family
and maybe even a little bitmore than just sustenance
everybody's labor is needed.
Every able-bodied person needsto contribute to this, beginning
(29:26):
as soon as a child is able totitle forward.
So what in the world can achild do when they're just just
after they've learned to walk?
They may not even be weaned yet, because they do Right.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
A child family is getting up in the morning.
Somebody is building a fire.
We got to have wood for thefire, right?
That toddler is capable ofgoing over there and picking up
some twigs that are laying onthe ground and bringing them for
the fire.
Responsibility number one Agedgrandparent not able to get
(30:12):
about so much anymore.
He looks thirsty.
A very small child is capableof getting a cup of some kind,
putting water in it and takingit to grandpa.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Right, we're talking about very young children and,
yes, they take so one of myfavorite stories.
I really treasure this story,even though it wasn't it didn't
happen to me, but I read aboutit and I know the anthropologist
who told this story.
So this is the anthropologistthat look at the Ketchua
(30:50):
Highlanders in Peru.
And when she first got thereshe was politely brought into a
hut and the family was theparents, I guess, and maybe the
grandparents or whoever wasthere was busy doing some things
(31:11):
so that she could be properlywelcomed.
I guess they were, I don't know.
They were making tea or I don'treally know what they were
doing, but they were busy andthere was a three year old girl.
The three year old girl,without any prompting, went and
(31:32):
got two cups, filled them withwater, came back to the
anthropologist, handed her onecup and welcomed her.
When people drink together likethat, they have, you know,
there's a ritual saying thatthey share, and she said that
(31:54):
ritual saying and, three yearsold, she took responsibility for
welcoming the guest properly atage three.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
We need to teach our American kids to do that, please
, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, you know what?
We're so busy giving themthings and making sure they have
fun.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
We don't teach them?
Huh, we don't.
We're not teaching, we're justgiving.
See, like my family, we wereraised from the Spanish side of
it, right, so we're raised bothEnglish and Spanish, but we
always had things to do.
We were responsible for our ownbed, or responsible for our
clothes, or make sure your shoesare clean.
(32:41):
You know, we just started withresponsibilities.
I've been cooking since I was 11years old.
I've been cooking.
I learned how to cook for mygrandmother and now I cook for
my mother, Right?
So you know, this is thetraditions, like you're saying,
traditions that we had, that we,generation over generation,
even though they assimilated,right, because they came from
(33:01):
the island to New York, but, andthey assimilated, but there was
still family traditions thatthey taught us.
So, you know, and I taught mykids how to clean, like they
cleaned their own bathroom, theyknow how to make their bed, you
know just different things.
So I used to tell them all thetime, because I was, I was, I
was married for a period of timeand then I, then I was, I had
(33:23):
raised them single, as a singlemother.
You know, their father wasinvolved, but still, I was home
with two kids by myself.
It wasn't easy, so it was likeeverybody has to pitch in.
I'm like you go clean thisbathroom, you go do that.
I showed them how to do it.
They're like okay, mommy, youknow, and they would help me,
I'm going to clean the diningroom table.
So I engaged them in life.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Well, you, you and your own experience as a child
and as a single parent have havepicked up on some of the things
that I like to point out frommy reading and writing this book
, and that's sort of what mychapter on responsibility is
about, and that is, you know, ifyou want your.
So here's what I, here's whathappens, I think, in many of
(34:05):
American families.
They're giving, giving the,giving their children things and
experiences and making surethey have fun and making sure
they're well fed and worryingabout them and protecting them.
And this is pretty much 24,seven, unless they get a
babysitter for a little while.
And then the child is growingup and things get even busier.
(34:26):
Maybe there's another child,maybe the you know, one of the
parents or both of the parentshas more demanding job, which is
great because they bring inmore money, blah, blah, blah,
and things get kind of franticin the household.
And so you have this 13 yearold kid and the parents thinking
, oh, how am I going to allthese things that need to do?
Oh, you know what she couldhelp out here.
(34:51):
She could take out the garbage,she could, you know, put the
dishes away.
And what many parents find outabout at that point is the child
doesn't want to do it.
Well, why they don't have anyexperience, they've just
continually been given things.
Here's the thing abouttraditional parents for
(35:12):
traditional families, not justparents.
Traditional families needchildren.
They need them.
American parents love childrenand so do traditional parents.
Traditional parents needchildren in practical, real life
(35:37):
ways.
American parents don't.
But we just give, give, give.
And another thing thattraditional parents need is when
they get older and they beginto come, become infirm and not
be able to contribute so muchthey need the children to take
care of them.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, we've institutionalized that in our
society, haven't we?
We would go off to yeah, wedon't want to.
I mean, we don't want totrouble our children, we want to
.
Well a lot of children.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
A lot of children don't even want to take care of
their parents.
So another example mygrandmother.
We took care of grandma.
She died at home at 90.
And right now my mother's 85,.
My aunt is 83, they both havememory issues.
During 2020, we all I moved inwith them at the house.
We have enough room.
We all live together and I havea business do this the podcast
(36:32):
and I still take care of mymother and my aunt.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's great.
So so your, your lifestyle iscloser to your sort of you know,
your, your, your your sort ofan amalgam of modern industrial,
technological society and youdefinitely have elements of
traditional values andtraditional family structure.
Yeah, you know one of the big,big differences between American
(36:58):
, typical American families andyou're, you are not necessarily
so typical.
One of the big differences isthat in traditional families and
indigenous families, these arewhat are known as extended
families, and the way you'vebeen talking, I would say that
you also, your family, is muchmore like an extended family,
(37:20):
meaning that there are severalgenerations.
So in a typical traditionalfamily, extended family, you
have children, you have parents,you have aunts, uncles, cousins
all over the place.
They tend to have a lot ofchildren.
Hey, they need them, they havea lot of them and their
(37:40):
grandparents, as long as theysurvive, and this is a unit.
And so, whereas we live when II don't know, we have to be
careful because you're, you'rein, you're in both.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
That's why I have a mix I have.
That's why I said I'mbicultural.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Even though I was born in New York city, I'm an
American right.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I was raised with American traditions, things like
that, and our family was very.
It was very important for mygrandmother to make sure that
the traditions from the familykept going to generation to
generation.
So, like I kept the cooking, Ido Puerto Rican, authentic
Puerto Rican cooking.
I do my grandmother's recipes.
(38:25):
I've altered them to make them.
Sometimes I make vegan stuffnow, you know, but I still have
the same spices and so I'vechanged them up to make them
healthier now.
But so I've adapted that, but Istill do that.
And my son, who's 23, works as ageneral manager at a restaurant
and he's cooking also, and Isaw him the other day and I said
, oh, he goes.
Oh, my, I cook in the back whenwe have to, when the lion is
(38:47):
busy, and I'm like look at himgoing, wow, I didn't so my
influence in him, because hewould cook with me when he was
little.
He goes Mama, how do I makethat?
How do I make rice and beans?
How do I do this?
So he would watch me in thekitchen and I would help him.
I would help.
Okay, you can bring the chickencutlets or you can do this.
So they would always help me inthat.
So I just kept bringing thatculture, the stuff that grandma
(39:09):
taught me, because I was braisedwith both grandparents.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
So, alita, you just in passing, you brought up
another very important pointabout the thing that really made
a big impression on me in thisbook, and this has been a matter
of great interest toanthropologists as well.
So the question is how dotraditional children learn?
No schools, so how do theylearn?
(39:38):
I just said the parents, as ageneralization.
The parents think it's not myresponsibility to raise them.
They give them to an oldersibling, send them to be with
the children's group.
Is this considered to be adereliction of parental duty?
No, this is how these societiesdo things.
(39:59):
But so well, how are thechildren so?
Oh, one thing I should justcaveat here is that one thing
that traditional parents do takeresponsibility for is manners
and morals.
This they care about.
Now the kids are also.
(40:21):
Probably.
The children are probably alsogetting it from the other
children.
But this is particularlyimportant because you know and I
would imagine in your ownexperience this is true you know
the older people get a lot ofrespect and we have to show them
respect.
Well, how do you do that?
You know, sometimes thisinvolves some ritual behaviors,
(40:45):
things that you really need tosay, and you know, I know, in
some traditional families theolder people eat first and then
everybody else eats.
You know, there's all kinds ofraised.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
We were always we, you know, like I used to say,
when we used to go somewhere, wehad the little discussion
before we left the house.
So it was grandma would say,okay, we're going to so and so's
house.
You know the rules you behave,you know no screaming, you know
polite.
So usually we would come andthey're like, oh, your kids are
so well behaved.
I'm like, yeah, because theytaught us that we respect
(41:23):
somebody else's house.
You don't touch anything that'snot yours.
I don't expect the people ofthe house like certain
guidelines and I did that to mykids as well.
I would tell my kids to do thisor do not do that, and so on.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Well, traditional parents, just as in your
experience, do tend to care alot about their children
learning manners and morals, butbeyond that, as a big
generalization, they don't payvery much attention.
They don't protect them, theydon't give them stuff, they
don't.
Kids have the run of the campwith the other children all all
(41:59):
day long, do they do they taketurns looking out for them and
being sure that Tiger isn'tgoing to pounce on them from the
forest?
No, they don't.
The children, the children,take care of themselves.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
It's like.
It's like growing up in NewYork.
When we grew up, you know, likein the 70s in New York, as you
know a whole differentgeneration we used to go to the
park.
We used to get scraped up andget all roughed up because
you're playing in the asphaltand everything, and our parents
didn't go with us to the park.
We used to go to the park withour friends, but other parents
(42:32):
knew the kids Like everybodyknew everybody in the
neighborhood.
So if Johnny did somethingwrong, you know, mary's parents
would scold Johnny and then goto your house and tell him I
scolded him because he did this.
Okay, and then they would scoldhim again.
You know what I mean?
I was saying like there was ayou know everybody kind of took
care of everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
So so I was.
I was picking up on somethingthat you said just in passing
and you said, I believe,referring to your son, that he
watched you cooking.
This is the answer to how otherchildren learn they watch, they
(43:16):
observe.
Then they try to do itthemselves, privately or in
groups of two or three, whateverit is, and this has been of
great interest to scholarsbecause this is how they learn,
and it's actually been given aname.
There's a scholar out in one ofthe universities in California
(43:38):
that's taken a particularinterest in this and she's come
up with an acronym, lopi, thatstands for learning by
observation and pitching in, andtraditional children learn an
enormous amount, really prettymuch everything they need to
(44:00):
know.
And so I can imagine peoplesaying and I mean, I was a
parent, my kids are all grown upand gone now, but, you know,
lost my train of thought there.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
So learning the LOPI?
You were talking about the LOPI, about pitching in and how they
do.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Anyway, I forgot where I was going with that,
sorry, sorry, anyway.
But the things they have tolearn, which are myriad.
We're not just talking about afew things how to boil an egg or
how to bring a tweak for thefire.
The things they have to learnare many.
(44:45):
They require takingresponsibility, but kids in
every culture are able to learnthis way, and they do learn this
way Now.
So what is the big difference?
The big difference is that we,our ancestors, began to change
(45:08):
and we find ourselves now livingin a highly industrialized,
technological society, and theonly way for children to survive
in this society is by becomingliterate, by becoming numerate,
by learning the things that youneed to know.
(45:31):
These are academic things,these are technical things.
You learn them in school.
This kind of knowledge is notnecessary in traditional
societies.
So the kids learn everythingthey need to know by LOPI
learning, by observation andpitching in, and you can also
(45:55):
think about trial and error.
But when they finally get aroundto trying to pitch in, they're
generally welcomed, even thoughthey're kind of bumbling and
don't get things right, because,hey, they are needed.
They are needed Now and again.
(46:15):
You're really an example ofthis, I often say in almost all
the interviews I give about thisbook I say you know, in
American society, americanmiddle class society, doesn't
live that way anymore.
But in the United States and inother developed countries as
(46:36):
well, there is one type offamily which in many ways is
living a traditional lifestylein which the children have these
kinds of opportunities to watch, to learn, to pitch in, to take
responsibility, to contribute,and I am talking about family
(46:59):
farms that raise animals, and Ithink this is your experience.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, because that still goes on, like in the
islands in Puerto Rico.
It's not as much as it used tobe, but there's still families
still have farms and animals andlivestock, basically, or just
produce or food growing, which Ilove, so there's still some of
that going on.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
So in our society and in other Western European
societies, you know, it's oftensaid that these societies are
highly individualistic.
In other words, the fundamentalvalue structure of the society
puts emphasis on the individualand what they want and their
aspirations and what they need.
(47:52):
And I've gotten so aware ofthis that I hear commercials on
the radio, I hear commercials ontelevision sometimes, and
they're just so heavily pitchedto the individual.
We take care of your needs, weunderstand you.
(48:14):
Our hospital gets to know youor our bank gets to know you,
just so we can do exactly whatyou want and need for your
future.
This is heavy, heavy valuesystem of individualism.
(48:34):
But in a traditional society andin a extended family, that
value system often is known ascommunitarian and the ethos of
that kind of society, the valuestructure, is not what I want,
(48:55):
is what I need.
It's what I want is what weneed.
It's all about we and the realfocus of that we is on the
extended family.
Now it's also on the community,maybe the larger polity, but
(49:15):
the family, the extended family,is the thing.
What I want is what we need.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
That's unfortunate, because now I believe, at least
my opinion, that our traditionalfamilies, that family has
broken because a lot of peopledon't have grandparents around
or people are having childrenlater in life.
But you're broken the traditionof having your grandparents and
uncles.
By the time you have a childthey're already past.
(49:44):
So I tell people I have mygrandparents.
They're like, oh, you're solucky, I never met my
grandparents.
I actually met my greatgrandmother.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Oh, wow, and you remember that, and I remember
that.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yes.
I was about seven or eightyears old and I remember going
to her house in Puerto Rico and,yeah, I can see her vividly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
How old was she at the time?
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I don't know.
I probably.
I mean she was up there.
She was older.
Well, I'm sure, I don't know,if she was in her 80s, maybe
younger, because the people hadchildren younger back then.
So I don't, she could have beenonly 15 years older than my
grandmother.
You know what I mean.
So I don't know.
I know she had Alzheimer's orsome kind of dementia, because
(50:31):
she then recognized every dayshe would go who are you, who
are you?
And she's like I'm yourdaughter, I don't know you.
You know like, and I would belike I'm your
great-granddaughter, you know.
So I remember those things too,but I'm just watching the time
because I have another interviewcoming out soon, so I don't
want to, but this has been anincredible conversation.
Just quickly, because I havelike five minutes left here.
(50:54):
So, with all this research andthis book, do you think that
there's something we can do inour society today to help our
children and our parents?
Speaker 2 (51:07):
I think what reading my book, certainly researching
and writing my book, but also, Icertainly hope, reading my book
, with the single exception ofwhat we were talking about
responsibility, where I thinkthat, in order to have children
who are willing and able to takeresponsibility, these parents
(51:32):
need to start really youngasking thing of children, asking
them to do things, asking themto contribute.
This is your experience growingup and, as I hear you explain,
it's your children's experiencegrowing up as well.
Beyond that, I'm very loath tosay yes, there's other things we
(51:56):
can copy, because thecircumstances, the physical, the
ecological, the value systemsin which they live, are so
unlike ours.
But what this does, I think oneof the most important
(52:16):
realizations I came up with, isthat we really undervalue
children.
Children are able to do things,they are able to take
responsibility, they are able tobe a part of the group and make
their contributions, even inmajor ways.
I mean the catcher at age eightor nine, a child will be sent
(52:39):
with the herd to the fields forthe entire day.
You know what that herd is tothat family?
That's their entire wealth inthe care of a child –Bro Saturn
10.
So I think it says to us do weneed to?
(53:02):
Well, one of the things that Icame up with and I think this
might actually be original withme is I came up with this little
saying middle class Americanparents parent as much as
possible.
Traditional parents parent aslittle as possible because the
(53:24):
children take much moreresponsibility for themselves,
they're contributing, and in somany ways.
It's not that we can copy, butwe can look at these things and
say, wow, I mean, I put so muchtime and effort and we spend so
much money and anxiety onparents and taking 24-7
(53:47):
responsibility for thesechildren.
Maybe we don't actually have todo all of this.
Maybe there's some middleground in here.
I think what my book does isgetting people to pause and say,
well, let's step back and kindof look at the whole thing
that's going on here and maybewe can't be just like them.
(54:11):
That's out, except maybe forthe responsibility bit.
But we can rethink.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Re-evaluate.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
And enable, and let your children enable themselves,
that they have the capability.
Like you're saying, a child hasa brain and they're educated
the same thing.
I mean people train their dogsto do tricks and do things, so I
mean your children are capablehere.
Johnny, take a glass of water,put it in the sink, let's clean
(54:44):
up.
I used to do that with my kids.
Come on, we're cleaning up theroom and they're like what do we
do?
I said, okay, honey, you takethis, throw that garbage.
You put it in the garbage, thistoy goes in the shelf.
So I would do things with thembecause you need to teach them
how to do it.
You can't just say, johnny, goclean the bathroom.
I don't know what to do, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
And there has been actual research on this with
modern children.
They're willing and able to dothis.
It makes them part of the group.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Oh wait, I got another person coming in.
I got to stop.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
All right.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Well, I hope your readers will remember how other
children learn, and the bookactually has a website
howotherchildrenlearninfo.
How otherchildrenlearninfo.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
So I will put that all when I upload the podcast
and all your information, I haveyour website and everything
about the book.
Okay, let me know where I Ireally need to read the time and
it was an awesome conversationand we'll get in touch again so
we can talk more.
I love all this.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yes, it's so interesting.
Thank you so much, Elita.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
All right, thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
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Studio 33 right here in FortLauderdale, off the exit 32
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Hi, welcome to Rebooted Mindset, formerly
Rebooted the Podcast.
I'm your host, alita Hernandez.
Come join me every Wednesdayand Sunday afternoon at 2.30 pm
Eastern time to hear real-lifeconversations with experts
around the world on how we canheal our body, mind, soul and
spirit.
So let's get talking.
(00:22):
Hi everybody, alita Hernandezhere Rebooted the Podcast, and
Simon O'Tellis C will be airedon Western Magazine as well.
I am here today with anotherfabulous guest, cornelius Grove,
an educator and author of anAuthority of Parenting Children
(00:42):
Across Cultures.
So it just sparked my interest,seeing that I'm bicultural.
Somebody told me that the otherday, you know, because I'm
Puerto Rican first-generation,born in New York, and we're also
Americans, so we're notmulticultural but bicultural.
So there's differences on, youknow, raising children and
(01:06):
everything like that.
So I'm curious on your take onthis.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, hello, alita.
I'm glad to be here today.
Thank you, I'm talking to youfrom Brooklyn, new York.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Where are you?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I'm in Fort Lodoto, florida, right now.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh boy, I bet it's hot down there.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Oh, yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's also hot up here .
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's hot everywhere.
Yeah, I'm originally from NewYork.
I left in 1987 from New York,so I've been gone for a long
time.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's a great place to be, I think, New York.
That's just my opinion.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Right.
We all say that when we move tothe left, oh Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So I was just turning up the volume so I could hear
you a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh, okay, no problem.
So you're an educator, I see,and you have been teaching high
school.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
How far are we going back?
I taught high school in themid-1960s.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I haven't taught high school since then.
I've done some universityteaching at Columbia University
and at the New School University.
They're both here in New Yorkand at Beijing Foreign Studies
University, which is in, ofcourse, beijing, china.
(02:39):
You said that I'm an educatorand I am an educator.
I don't disavow that at all.
My doctorate is in education.
But these days I prefer to saythat it's more accurate to say
that I am an ethnologist.
(02:59):
Now, it's easy to getethnologist mixed up with
ethologists.
There's just one letterdifference.
An ethologist is a scholar whostudies animals.
Okay, I'm very pro-animal, butthat's not what I am.
An ethnologist is a scholar whocompares and contrasts cultures
(03:23):
, and that's basically what Ihave been doing as an author and
as a scholar for well over 10,12 years now.
My previous two books, all of myrecent books, are published by
(03:44):
Roman and Littlefield.
My previous two books verysquarely compared the cultures
of East Asia, that's, china,japan, taiwan, korea, hong Kong
and so forth, with Americanculture with respect to
children's learning in school.
(04:06):
Well, it's not that those twobooks are closely related to
each other.
I call them sister books.
Those are not the books we'rehere to talk about today, but
I'm ready to talk about themanytime.
So both of those books werevery, very squarely about what
goes on in classrooms and howthat might be how our experience
(04:32):
here in the United States mightbe improved in terms of how
well our students learn inschool classrooms and how well
they retain what they do learn.
But for this book that we'rehere to talk about today and
that's this book here I decidedI wanted to take a break from
(04:57):
looking at school classrooms bythe way, I'm working on my fifth
book now and I'm right backinto school classrooms but so my
break lasted there about threeyears.
I wanted to see what was goingon with children and parents in
(05:20):
societies in which there are noschools or in which schools are
just beginning to be introduced,and so that's what this book is
about.
We're looking at children about.
Just about everything goes gonewith children in these five
(05:41):
traditional societies, otherthan that they go to school,
because either just a few ofthem go to school or there
aren't even any schools anywherenearby.
And they couldn't possibly go toschool.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And you believe that that it's 2013 and there's still
places that have no schools?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Quite a few.
So maybe I should tell you thefive societies that I looked at.
Now let me just say that.
So the question arises well,how did you decide which
traditional societies to look at?
(06:20):
Yes, I don't know if I actuallysaid these are I looked at.
So I looked at what's generallyknown as traditional societies,
also sometimes known asindigenous societies.
Okay, 40, 50 years ago weprobably wouldn't have blushed
to refer to them as primitive,or at least one or two of them.
(06:43):
But we don't do that anymorebecause that has overtones that
really aren't accurate and thatare prejudicial in some ways.
So we don't use that wordanymore.
Traditional is a much morerespectful term, and indigenous,
of course, has a specificmeaning that they were always
there.
I've been there for not justdecades, but hundreds, maybe
(07:06):
even thousands of years.
So the five traditional societythat I looked at oh, I was
going to say how I chose them.
Well, first of all, I want to beclear that I did not go to
these societies myself and visitthem and have a look.
(07:26):
I didn't have to do thatbecause anthropologists have
already done that.
In particular, I'm interestedin a field of anthropology
that's generally known as theanthropology of childhood, so I
(07:50):
had to choose societies thatwere traditional or indigenous,
on the one hand, and also inwhich anthropologists of
childhood had gone and livedthere and done their research,
which is generally known asparticipant observation.
(08:11):
That means that they basicallyshow up and move in and they
live there and they get involvedand they make friends and they
learn how to do.
You know, one of the mostdifficult things, certainly from
my perspective, is they learnthe language.
(08:33):
Sometimes they're able to learnthese languages to fluency
before they get there, but othertimes no.
So that's a huge thing, atleast from my language challenge
brain.
I have great respect for thatDo?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
you speak one language only.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, I've studied.
I did my doctoral dissertation.
I did a great deal of it inPortuguese.
In those days, which is quite afew years ago now, my wife and
I had lived in Portugal and wehad studied Portuguese, and so I
was able to do quite a bit ofthe interviewing, although this
(09:19):
was all in the United States, inMassachusetts, where there are
a lot of Portuguese people.
I was able to interview studentsand parents and schools
administrators and teachers whenthey prefer to speak Portuguese
.
I was able to interview them inPortuguese and those interviews
were sometimes quite long.
(09:39):
But when it came time for thoseinterviews to be transcribed
because I had recorded them,that was really beyond me.
I hired a real and actual,truly bilingual person to do the
transfer.
I also have spoken a littleChinese.
I've also spoken a littleSpanish, oh, and it took three
(10:05):
years of German in college.
So I'm not unfamiliar withlanguages, but right now I have
to say right now I'm monolingual.
But I think if I moved back toPortugal or Brazil, I'd begin
picking it up pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Right, the immersion when you immerse yourself in the
language.
That's the only way you don'thave any choice Exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You want to get your breakfast.
You got to ask for it.
So I had to find, anyway, I hadto find five societies in which
anthropologists of childhoodspecifically of childhood had
been there, lived there and comeback when I say lived there,
(10:46):
sometimes for more than a year,and then come back and written
about it in books and in journalarticles.
And I had to be sure that thefive societies that I wanted to
deal with in this book, that Ihad sufficient information, not
just one anthropologist, I hadto have several.
All right, I didn't want torely entirely on one, so the so,
(11:10):
and, as good fortune had it, Ifound five, and each one is on a
different continent.
So the first one I want tomention and is, you know, the
first of the five chapters isthe Aukka hunter-gatherers of
Central Africa.
These are hunter-gatherers.
(11:30):
This is pretty seriouslytraditional.
No schools anywhere.
They live in the forests ofAfrica and you know, you might
say the jungle, and it's a very,very different life than what
you or I, or probably anybodylistening to this program, have
(11:53):
ever lived.
Certainly applies to me.
I mean, I was a boy scout, butthat has nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It has nothing on them, that's for sure.
They're out there with thelittle little outfits and the
spears right and they're outthere like well, when they go
hunting they have some spears.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, that's true.
And so the second society wasthe Ketchuas of the high Andes
in Peru, and the picture on thecover of the book is of three
Ketchua girls.
That was taken by ananthropologist who spent many,
(12:33):
many, many months with theKetchua.
They live at an altitude of12,000 to 16,000 feet, and
things are pretty barren upthere, you know.
So they got to worry aboutgetting breakfast, lunch and
dinner as well.
So where does that come from?
(12:54):
The third one that I want tomention is be more familiar to
at least a name to most of yourlisteners, I would think and
that's the Navajos of our ownSouthwest.
A great deal of anthropologicalattention has been paid to the
Navajos.
The fourth one is the villageArabs of the Levant.
(13:18):
Now, I know that not all ofyour listeners are going to
immediately know what I meanabout when I say the Levant.
The Levant refers to, if youcan imagine in your mind's eye
where Israel and Palestine andLebanon and Syria are.
Well, that's basically theLevant, the eastern end of the
(13:41):
Mediterranean.
And now the people?
In that case, they were livingin houses in small villages, but
they were the heirs of theBedouin nomads.
The Bedouin nomads are anotherfascinating group and I really
(14:05):
had hoped excuse me that I couldfind enough anthropological
studies of children among theBedouin nomads that I could make
the nomads themselves thesubject of this chapter, but
that was not possible.
However, these people that Idid look at, who have been
(14:26):
studied quite often, are theheirs of the nomads and they
maintain many of theirtraditions.
And the fifth group is the Hinduvillagers of India.
Now, india is a very, verymulticultural place.
(14:49):
When we hear about India in thenews, we are hearing mostly
about big things.
They do a lot of work incomputers and plenty of India is
highly urbanized.
But there certainly are partsof India, many parts of India,
where people are still living atraditional lifestyle.
(15:11):
They are not living in urbanareas by any means.
They're in small towns out farfrom the urban centers and they
have been very heavily studiedby anthropologists.
The children and the parentshave all been very heavily
studied.
So those are the five societiesthat I looked at.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So what were you looking for?
These different societies,these five societies you were
trying to find out a differencein between how they're learning
versus American learning?
Is that?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, I just said, look here's.
Here are five societies inwhich the children either don't
go to school at all.
Their parents, the older peoplein these societies almost 100%
have never been in a classroomas a student.
(16:09):
So you have a society thatstill remains largely illiterate
.
That is beginning to change.
We all tend to think that's agood thing, but after you look
at five societies like I did,you begin to say, well, this is
(16:30):
a very mixed thing.
Literacy is good in some waysand in other ways we have to
think about it.
Anyway, I wanted to see what wasgoing on.
I'm not sure I went in with a.
(16:51):
Yes, I was under contract witha publisher who published a
great deal for educators, and Iam an educator, and so I wanted
to look at education.
But here's the interestingthing Education, the real
meaning of education, does notmean schooling.
(17:15):
Education is a much, muchbroader term.
That means child socialization,child children growing up.
How do children growing upbecome adults?
(17:37):
Think of all the things thatthey need to be able to do,
learn how to do as they getolder and older and older all
kinds of social norms and valuesand expectations that people
(17:58):
have in a traditional society.
It's extremely important thatthey are able to contribute, to
contribute their labor and theirknowledge and their expertise
to simply having enough food onthe table, day after day, month
(18:20):
after month, season after season.
I think this is one of thethings that really impressed me
about traditional societies, andthat is so, so different from
our society.
We just nip out to thesupermarket, pick up what we
(18:41):
need, come back home, it's inthe fridge, it's in the pantry,
we're done.
I mean, we have to prepare it.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Right.
But we have a lot ofconvenience.
We have so much convenience.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And when you get into traditional societies, like I
did in order to write this book,I just so impressed with the
incredible comfort andconvenience that we have in our
society.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So I tell you.
So I was raised.
In the summer I was in PuertoRico.
My grandparents were livingthere.
So as a little child after myparents got divorced, I would
spend three months of the yearthere.
I lived in New York City andthen I spent my summers in the
country, in Puerto Rico.
So talk about two differentends of culture.
So first started going there.
(19:42):
It was rough because I'm a citygirl right, I'm a city girl.
I have supermarket, I have.
So now I'm in the country.
So now I learned.
So I learned a lot of thingssince I was alone during the day
with my grandmother.
She had a farm.
I used to feed the chickens, Iused to take care of the, to get
the eggs from the chickens inthe morning, go pick up fruit
(20:02):
from all the trees that we had.
And even till this day it hasmolded me who I am, because I
walk around South Florida andit's mango season.
I'm picking mangoes off thetrees and coconuts.
I'm coming home with a backpack.
You know I look what I got like.
I went foraging in the forest,you know.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, this, this is a great example.
This is a great example becauseone of the thing that really
stands out about children intraditional cultures is that
even at a very young age, theybegin to assist and support the
family in getting the food it'sneeding, storing the food it's
(20:44):
needing and in other ways,helping to take responsibility
for the survival and even thethriving of the family.
And that is such an importantthing to look at and understand
that I devoted an entire chapterto it.
(21:06):
You know American parents, Iwould imagine I've read accounts
from other cultures too, likeone sticks in my mind, from
Italy, for example, anotherhighly industrialized,
technological culture.
Parents have a lot of troublegetting their children to pitch
(21:30):
in to assist around the house.
Well, you know what Traditionalparents don't.
Now, why is that?
So I, I, you would have askedme this eventually, but the
question arises well, what canwe, what can we?
Look at these traditionalsocieties and copy and bring
(21:51):
into our society, and my answeris generally nothing.
There's much more to say aboutnothing, but there is one thing
that, and the reason there'snothing is because the
circumstances in which they liveare so utterly different from
(22:12):
ours, and the not, not just thephysical.
You know what they look at whenthey look out the door of their
house, but even the way thefamilies are structured, and
this is something that you mightbe able to relate to as well in
your own experience.
So what, what?
(22:37):
What happens with the childrenas a generalization and I
emphasize to you and to yourlisteners that I'm very aware
that I'm speaking ingeneralizations and not every
single traditional society isexactly like this Nevertheless,
you look at a lot of traditionalsocieties and I've read, as I
(23:01):
was getting ready to write thisbook, I read many other things
that were about societies otherthan these five, and I read
things that anthropologists hadwritten in general about
traditional societies, and youcan generalize to a considerable
extent.
What happened as ageneralization is that when a
(23:23):
child is born and until it'sweaned, it receives incredibly
intense attention from itsmother.
The father isn't usuallyinvolved so much there are
exceptions to that but themother, you know the child is
(23:44):
pretty much with the mother, 24,seven, nursing on demand, etc.
Etc.
But when nursing is over,something happens which just
doesn't happen in our society.
At that point, the parent'sattitude is it's not my job to
(24:05):
raise this child, not up to me.
Well, okay, who is it then?
The answer is this Another verycommon is that the child is
(24:26):
given to the next oldest sibling.
The next oldest sibling girlspreferred or a cousin is
responsible for the child, notjust sort of responsible, while
the parent runs off to thesupermarket, not as a babysitter
(24:50):
, but as the 24 sevenresponsible party for this
child's welfare we're talkingabout, if they have diapers,
changing diapers, cleaningbottoms, putting down for naps
or you know, just whatever.
Whatever's going on, andwhatever's going on isn't
(25:12):
necessarily like what's going onin our society.
The other thing that happensand these two things can happen
together is that the childbecomes a member of the
children's group of the smalltown or settlement or camp where
this family and some otherfamilies live, and the children
(25:38):
form a group, a mixed age, mixedsex group that has the run of
the area.
Are they supervised by your?
Many of your listeners willwant to know.
Well, they have the run of thearea.
What happens here to the adults?
Do the adults take turns?
(26:00):
You know looking out for thesepeople, and sure they're safe?
No, they don't worry about them.
Well, what about?
These aren't?
What about if the kid picks upa knife or gets too close to the
fire.
It's not the adults concern.
The children have to learn thison their own.
(26:20):
Maybe their sibling, you know,gives them some advice, or maybe
they just learn.
I mean, there's accounts in theliterature of children, you
know, 14, 15 months old usingquite a large knife to get some
food off a branch, or somethinglike that.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, I've seen that on YouTube.
I've seen all the cultures thatthe children are Like.
There's one online that is alittle Asian boy and he's
cooking and he must be threeyears old or four and he's see
him cooking on the block andhe's I mean, he did a whole meal
.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Like adults, don't know how to cook.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Well, the adults know how to cook, but they.
This is one of the ways inwhich he is contributing to the
welfare of the family, andcontributing in very meaningful
ways, in ways that are useful,in ways that take the burden off
the adults.
Here's the really interestingthing about, here's the really
(27:24):
interesting difference and Ididn't discover this, but I
certainly saw examples of it inyou know, as I was learning
about these five societies.
In American society and otherhighly industrialized western
(27:47):
societies, the benefits flowfrom the parents to the children
.
We give children things, wegive them toys, we give them
protection, we give them a placeto live, we give them a room of
(28:10):
their own.
If we're one of the cultureswhich we think, children have to
have a room of their own, bythe way, that's rather unusual
when you look at all cultures.
So the practical benefits flowfrom the parents to the children
.
The children are on thereceiving end.
The parents are putting outtime, energy, money and anxiety
(28:37):
to see that this child grows upcontent and happy and has a good
childhood, and so forth and soon.
Give, give, give, give, give.
It's just the reverse.
In traditional societies, thebenefits flow from the children
to the parents.
Why is this?
(28:58):
Because to raise their own foodand do everything that needs to
be done to ensure the securityand the sustenance of the family
and maybe even a little bitmore than just sustenance
everybody's labor is needed.
Every able-bodied person needsto contribute to this, beginning
(29:26):
as soon as a child is able totitle forward.
So what in the world can achild do when they're just just
after they've learned to walk?
They may not even be weaned yet, because they do Right.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
A child family is getting up in the morning.
Somebody is building a fire.
We got to have wood for thefire, right?
That toddler is capable ofgoing over there and picking up
some twigs that are laying onthe ground and bringing them for
the fire.
Responsibility number one Agedgrandparent not able to get
(30:12):
about so much anymore.
He looks thirsty.
A very small child is capableof getting a cup of some kind,
putting water in it and takingit to grandpa.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Right, we're talking about very young children and,
yes, they take so one of myfavorite stories.
I really treasure this story,even though it wasn't it didn't
happen to me, but I read aboutit and I know the anthropologist
who told this story.
So this is the anthropologistthat look at the Ketchua
(30:50):
Highlanders in Peru.
And when she first got thereshe was politely brought into a
hut and the family was theparents, I guess, and maybe the
grandparents or whoever wasthere was busy doing some things
(31:11):
so that she could be properlywelcomed.
I guess they were, I don't know.
They were making tea or I don'treally know what they were
doing, but they were busy andthere was a three year old girl.
The three year old girl,without any prompting, went and
(31:32):
got two cups, filled them withwater, came back to the
anthropologist, handed her onecup and welcomed her.
When people drink together likethat, they have, you know,
there's a ritual saying thatthey share, and she said that
(31:54):
ritual saying and, three yearsold, she took responsibility for
welcoming the guest properly atage three.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
We need to teach our American kids to do that, please
, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, you know what?
We're so busy giving themthings and making sure they have
fun.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
We don't teach them?
Huh, we don't.
We're not teaching, we're justgiving.
See, like my family, we wereraised from the Spanish side of
it, right, so we're raised bothEnglish and Spanish, but we
always had things to do.
We were responsible for our ownbed, or responsible for our
clothes, or make sure your shoesare clean.
(32:41):
You know, we just started withresponsibilities.
I've been cooking since I was 11years old.
I've been cooking.
I learned how to cook for mygrandmother and now I cook for
my mother, Right?
So you know, this is thetraditions, like you're saying,
traditions that we had, that we,generation over generation,
even though they assimilated,right, because they came from
(33:01):
the island to New York, but, andthey assimilated, but there was
still family traditions thatthey taught us.
So, you know, and I taught mykids how to clean, like they
cleaned their own bathroom, theyknow how to make their bed, you
know just different things.
So I used to tell them all thetime, because I was, I was, I
was married for a period of timeand then I, then I was, I had
(33:23):
raised them single, as a singlemother.
You know, their father wasinvolved, but still, I was home
with two kids by myself.
It wasn't easy, so it was likeeverybody has to pitch in.
I'm like you go clean thisbathroom, you go do that.
I showed them how to do it.
They're like okay, mommy, youknow, and they would help me,
I'm going to clean the diningroom table.
So I engaged them in life.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Well, you, you and your own experience as a child
and as a single parent have havepicked up on some of the things
that I like to point out frommy reading and writing this book
, and that's sort of what mychapter on responsibility is
about, and that is, you know, ifyou want your.
So here's what I, here's whathappens, I think, in many of
(34:05):
American families.
They're giving, giving the,giving their children things and
experiences and making surethey have fun and making sure
they're well fed and worryingabout them and protecting them.
And this is pretty much 24,seven, unless they get a
babysitter for a little while.
And then the child is growingup and things get even busier.
(34:26):
Maybe there's another child,maybe the you know, one of the
parents or both of the parentshas more demanding job, which is
great because they bring inmore money, blah, blah, blah,
and things get kind of franticin the household.
And so you have this 13 yearold kid and the parents thinking
, oh, how am I going to allthese things that need to do?
Oh, you know what she couldhelp out here.
(34:51):
She could take out the garbage,she could, you know, put the
dishes away.
And what many parents find outabout at that point is the child
doesn't want to do it.
Well, why they don't have anyexperience, they've just
continually been given things.
Here's the thing abouttraditional parents for
(35:12):
traditional families, not justparents.
Traditional families needchildren.
They need them.
American parents love childrenand so do traditional parents.
Traditional parents needchildren in practical, real life
(35:37):
ways.
American parents don't.
But we just give, give, give.
And another thing thattraditional parents need is when
they get older and they beginto come, become infirm and not
be able to contribute so muchthey need the children to take
care of them.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, we've institutionalized that in our
society, haven't we?
We would go off to yeah, wedon't want to.
I mean, we don't want totrouble our children, we want to
.
Well a lot of children.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
A lot of children don't even want to take care of
their parents.
So another example mygrandmother.
We took care of grandma.
She died at home at 90.
And right now my mother's 85,.
My aunt is 83, they both havememory issues.
During 2020, we all I moved inwith them at the house.
We have enough room.
We all live together and I havea business do this the podcast
(36:32):
and I still take care of mymother and my aunt.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's great.
So so your, your lifestyle iscloser to your sort of you know,
your, your, your your sort ofan amalgam of modern industrial,
technological society and youdefinitely have elements of
traditional values andtraditional family structure.
Yeah, you know one of the big,big differences between American
(36:58):
, typical American families andyou're, you are not necessarily
so typical.
One of the big differences isthat in traditional families and
indigenous families, these arewhat are known as extended
families, and the way you'vebeen talking, I would say that
you also, your family, is muchmore like an extended family,
(37:20):
meaning that there are severalgenerations.
So in a typical traditionalfamily, extended family, you
have children, you have parents,you have aunts, uncles, cousins
all over the place.
They tend to have a lot ofchildren.
Hey, they need them, they havea lot of them and their
(37:40):
grandparents, as long as theysurvive, and this is a unit.
And so, whereas we live when II don't know, we have to be
careful because you're, you'rein, you're in both.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
That's why I have a mix I have.
That's why I said I'mbicultural.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Even though I was born in New York city, I'm an
American right.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I was raised with American traditions, things like
that, and our family was very.
It was very important for mygrandmother to make sure that
the traditions from the familykept going to generation to
generation.
So, like I kept the cooking, Ido Puerto Rican, authentic
Puerto Rican cooking.
I do my grandmother's recipes.
(38:25):
I've altered them to make them.
Sometimes I make vegan stuffnow, you know, but I still have
the same spices and so I'vechanged them up to make them
healthier now.
But so I've adapted that, but Istill do that.
And my son, who's 23, works as ageneral manager at a restaurant
and he's cooking also, and Isaw him the other day and I said
, oh, he goes.
Oh, my, I cook in the back whenwe have to, when the lion is
(38:47):
busy, and I'm like look at himgoing, wow, I didn't so my
influence in him, because hewould cook with me when he was
little.
He goes Mama, how do I makethat?
How do I make rice and beans?
How do I do this?
So he would watch me in thekitchen and I would help him.
I would help.
Okay, you can bring the chickencutlets or you can do this.
So they would always help me inthat.
So I just kept bringing thatculture, the stuff that grandma
(39:09):
taught me, because I was braisedwith both grandparents.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
So, alita, you just in passing, you brought up
another very important pointabout the thing that really made
a big impression on me in thisbook, and this has been a matter
of great interest toanthropologists as well.
So the question is how dotraditional children learn?
No schools, so how do theylearn?
(39:38):
I just said the parents, as ageneralization.
The parents think it's not myresponsibility to raise them.
They give them to an oldersibling, send them to be with
the children's group.
Is this considered to be adereliction of parental duty?
No, this is how these societiesdo things.
(39:59):
But so well, how are thechildren so?
Oh, one thing I should justcaveat here is that one thing
that traditional parents do takeresponsibility for is manners
and morals.
This they care about.
Now the kids are also.
(40:21):
Probably.
The children are probably alsogetting it from the other
children.
But this is particularlyimportant because you know and I
would imagine in your ownexperience this is true you know
the older people get a lot ofrespect and we have to show them
respect.
Well, how do you do that?
You know, sometimes thisinvolves some ritual behaviors,
(40:45):
things that you really need tosay, and you know, I know, in
some traditional families theolder people eat first and then
everybody else eats.
You know, there's all kinds ofraised.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
We were always we, you know, like I used to say,
when we used to go somewhere, wehad the little discussion
before we left the house.
So it was grandma would say,okay, we're going to so and so's
house.
You know the rules you behave,you know no screaming, you know
polite.
So usually we would come andthey're like, oh, your kids are
so well behaved.
I'm like, yeah, because theytaught us that we respect
(41:23):
somebody else's house.
You don't touch anything that'snot yours.
I don't expect the people ofthe house like certain
guidelines and I did that to mykids as well.
I would tell my kids to do thisor do not do that, and so on.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Well, traditional parents, just as in your
experience, do tend to care alot about their children
learning manners and morals, butbeyond that, as a big
generalization, they don't payvery much attention.
They don't protect them, theydon't give them stuff, they
don't.
Kids have the run of the campwith the other children all all
(41:59):
day long, do they do they taketurns looking out for them and
being sure that Tiger isn'tgoing to pounce on them from the
forest?
No, they don't.
The children, the children,take care of themselves.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
It's like.
It's like growing up in NewYork.
When we grew up, you know, likein the 70s in New York, as you
know a whole differentgeneration we used to go to the
park.
We used to get scraped up andget all roughed up because
you're playing in the asphaltand everything, and our parents
didn't go with us to the park.
We used to go to the park withour friends, but other parents
(42:32):
knew the kids Like everybodyknew everybody in the
neighborhood.
So if Johnny did somethingwrong, you know, mary's parents
would scold Johnny and then goto your house and tell him I
scolded him because he did this.
Okay, and then they would scoldhim again.
You know what I mean?
I was saying like there was ayou know everybody kind of took
care of everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
So so I was.
I was picking up on somethingthat you said just in passing
and you said, I believe,referring to your son, that he
watched you cooking.
This is the answer to how otherchildren learn they watch, they
(43:16):
observe.
Then they try to do itthemselves, privately or in
groups of two or three, whateverit is, and this has been of
great interest to scholarsbecause this is how they learn,
and it's actually been given aname.
There's a scholar out in one ofthe universities in California
(43:38):
that's taken a particularinterest in this and she's come
up with an acronym, lopi, thatstands for learning by
observation and pitching in, andtraditional children learn an
enormous amount, really prettymuch everything they need to
(44:00):
know.
And so I can imagine peoplesaying and I mean, I was a
parent, my kids are all grown upand gone now, but, you know,
lost my train of thought there.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
So learning the LOPI?
You were talking about the LOPI, about pitching in and how they
do.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Anyway, I forgot where I was going with that,
sorry, sorry, anyway.
But the things they have tolearn, which are myriad.
We're not just talking about afew things how to boil an egg or
how to bring a tweak for thefire.
The things they have to learnare many.
(44:45):
They require takingresponsibility, but kids in
every culture are able to learnthis way, and they do learn this
way Now.
So what is the big difference?
The big difference is that we,our ancestors, began to change
(45:08):
and we find ourselves now livingin a highly industrialized,
technological society, and theonly way for children to survive
in this society is by becomingliterate, by becoming numerate,
by learning the things that youneed to know.
(45:31):
These are academic things,these are technical things.
You learn them in school.
This kind of knowledge is notnecessary in traditional
societies.
So the kids learn everythingthey need to know by LOPI
learning, by observation andpitching in, and you can also
(45:55):
think about trial and error.
But when they finally get aroundto trying to pitch in, they're
generally welcomed, even thoughthey're kind of bumbling and
don't get things right, because,hey, they are needed.
They are needed Now and again.
(46:15):
You're really an example ofthis, I often say in almost all
the interviews I give about thisbook I say you know, in
American society, americanmiddle class society, doesn't
live that way anymore.
But in the United States and inother developed countries as
(46:36):
well, there is one type offamily which in many ways is
living a traditional lifestylein which the children have these
kinds of opportunities to watch, to learn, to pitch in, to take
responsibility, to contribute,and I am talking about family
(46:59):
farms that raise animals, and Ithink this is your experience.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, because that still goes on, like in the
islands in Puerto Rico.
It's not as much as it used tobe, but there's still families
still have farms and animals andlivestock, basically, or just
produce or food growing, which Ilove, so there's still some of
that going on.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
So in our society and in other Western European
societies, you know, it's oftensaid that these societies are
highly individualistic.
In other words, the fundamentalvalue structure of the society
puts emphasis on the individualand what they want and their
aspirations and what they need.
(47:52):
And I've gotten so aware ofthis that I hear commercials on
the radio, I hear commercials ontelevision sometimes, and
they're just so heavily pitchedto the individual.
We take care of your needs, weunderstand you.
(48:14):
Our hospital gets to know youor our bank gets to know you,
just so we can do exactly whatyou want and need for your
future.
This is heavy, heavy valuesystem of individualism.
(48:34):
But in a traditional society andin a extended family, that
value system often is known ascommunitarian and the ethos of
that kind of society, the valuestructure, is not what I want,
(48:55):
is what I need.
It's what I want is what weneed.
It's all about we and the realfocus of that we is on the
extended family.
Now it's also on the community,maybe the larger polity, but
(49:15):
the family, the extended family,is the thing.
What I want is what we need.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
That's unfortunate, because now I believe, at least
my opinion, that our traditionalfamilies, that family has
broken because a lot of peopledon't have grandparents around
or people are having childrenlater in life.
But you're broken the traditionof having your grandparents and
uncles.
By the time you have a childthey're already past.
(49:44):
So I tell people I have mygrandparents.
They're like, oh, you're solucky, I never met my
grandparents.
I actually met my greatgrandmother.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Oh, wow, and you remember that, and I remember
that.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yes.
I was about seven or eightyears old and I remember going
to her house in Puerto Rico and,yeah, I can see her vividly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
How old was she at the time?
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I don't know.
I probably.
I mean she was up there.
She was older.
Well, I'm sure, I don't know,if she was in her 80s, maybe
younger, because the people hadchildren younger back then.
So I don't, she could have beenonly 15 years older than my
grandmother.
You know what I mean.
So I don't know.
I know she had Alzheimer's orsome kind of dementia, because
(50:31):
she then recognized every dayshe would go who are you, who
are you?
And she's like I'm yourdaughter, I don't know you.
You know like, and I would belike I'm your
great-granddaughter, you know.
So I remember those things too,but I'm just watching the time
because I have another interviewcoming out soon, so I don't
want to, but this has been anincredible conversation.
Just quickly, because I havelike five minutes left here.
(50:54):
So, with all this research andthis book, do you think that
there's something we can do inour society today to help our
children and our parents?
Speaker 2 (51:07):
I think what reading my book, certainly researching
and writing my book, but also, Icertainly hope, reading my book
, with the single exception ofwhat we were talking about
responsibility, where I thinkthat, in order to have children
who are willing and able to takeresponsibility, these parents
(51:32):
need to start really youngasking thing of children, asking
them to do things, asking themto contribute.
This is your experience growingup and, as I hear you explain,
it's your children's experiencegrowing up as well.
Beyond that, I'm very loath tosay yes, there's other things we
(51:56):
can copy, because thecircumstances, the physical, the
ecological, the value systemsin which they live, are so
unlike ours.
But what this does, I think oneof the most important
(52:16):
realizations I came up with, isthat we really undervalue
children.
Children are able to do things,they are able to take
responsibility, they are able tobe a part of the group and make
their contributions, even inmajor ways.
I mean the catcher at age eightor nine, a child will be sent
(52:39):
with the herd to the fields forthe entire day.
You know what that herd is tothat family?
That's their entire wealth inthe care of a child –Bro Saturn
10.
So I think it says to us do weneed to?
(53:02):
Well, one of the things that Icame up with and I think this
might actually be original withme is I came up with this little
saying middle class Americanparents parent as much as
possible.
Traditional parents parent aslittle as possible because the
(53:24):
children take much moreresponsibility for themselves,
they're contributing, and in somany ways.
It's not that we can copy, butwe can look at these things and
say, wow, I mean, I put so muchtime and effort and we spend so
much money and anxiety onparents and taking 24-7
(53:47):
responsibility for thesechildren.
Maybe we don't actually have todo all of this.
Maybe there's some middleground in here.
I think what my book does isgetting people to pause and say,
well, let's step back and kindof look at the whole thing
that's going on here and maybewe can't be just like them.
(54:11):
That's out, except maybe forthe responsibility bit.
But we can rethink.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Re-evaluate.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
And enable, and let your children enable themselves,
that they have the capability.
Like you're saying, a child hasa brain and they're educated
the same thing.
I mean people train their dogsto do tricks and do things, so I
mean your children are capablehere.
Johnny, take a glass of water,put it in the sink, let's clean
(54:44):
up.
I used to do that with my kids.
Come on, we're cleaning up theroom and they're like what do we
do?
I said, okay, honey, you takethis, throw that garbage.
You put it in the garbage, thistoy goes in the shelf.
So I would do things with thembecause you need to teach them
how to do it.
You can't just say, johnny, goclean the bathroom.
I don't know what to do, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
And there has been actual research on this with
modern children.
They're willing and able to dothis.
It makes them part of the group.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Oh wait, I got another person coming in.
I got to stop.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
All right.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Well, I hope your readers will remember how other
children learn, and the bookactually has a website
howotherchildrenlearninfo.
How otherchildrenlearninfo.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
So I will put that all when I upload the podcast
and all your information, I haveyour website and everything
about the book.
Okay, let me know where I Ireally need to read the time and
it was an awesome conversationand we'll get in touch again so
we can talk more.
I love all this.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yes, it's so interesting.
Thank you so much, Elita.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
All right, thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Come celebrate your event and create new memories at
Studio 33 right here in FortLauderdale, off the exit 32
commercial boulevard.
Call us today so you canschedule an appointment and see
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Call us at 954-530-7193.
Again, 954-530-7193.
(56:17):
Also, our website is studio33f.
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