Dropping Knowledge

I have already written a post regarding the importance of providing one's child with a well-rounded education. I concentrated on musical education as I earlier did on athletic know-how. But have I missed a larger, more important goal? How does one ensure that one's child is smart? To a great extent, a child's intelligence is probably out of a parent's control. Learning difficulties such as dyslexia or ADHD are often beyond a parent's control. There is a lot, however, that a parent can do to positively affect the chances of one's child being a curious, aware, logical and capable scholar.
To bolster a child's sense of curiosity, it is important to provide him or her with many stimulating experiences that might lead to questions. My boys and I are frequent visitors to the zoo. This is an excellent starting point for the smartening of one's child(ren). There's nothing more satisfying than taking one's three year-old child to the zoo and having him say, "look, daddy, there's the Debrasas Guenon [a type of monkey]," or "look at the ring-tailed lemur, dad. In Madagascar, I bet they're as common as squirrels" or "if I could be any animal, I would be the reticulated python because it is 18 feet long and 180 pounds [big = cool in a boy's world]." So often do my boys and I visit the zoo that the workers at the gate no longer offer us the zoo maps. "Those are just for the average visitors," I tell my boys, "not for true naturalists like us." Occasionally, my boys choose to play in the zoo playground. This only reinforces the utility of the zoo in my mind. Not only is it informative and stimulating, but it provides an outlet for any excess energy that boys so often tend to have. Another excellent aspect to the zoo experience is that it necessitates walking. I've mentioned before my fondness for Animal Planet, but there is nothing like actually exercising while seeing cool animals. I would strongly encourage purchasing a zoo membership. Not only does this facilitate entering the zoo, but it provides cool goodies like a monthly zoo magazine and free tickets for visiting family/friends. Finally, little makes one feel more the naturalist than skipping the long ticket lines to access the animals than doing so via the Zoo Member entrance.
Another potential challenge to building on our children's knowledge-base comes from their relative lack of life-experience. It is difficult to, for instance, explain the notion of diplomacy to a five year-old. A canny parent will deftly side-step such an obstacle, however. To explain the notion of diplomacy, a parent could describe the major themes behind diplomacy: cooperation toward a mutually beneficial goal, accord, respect for the needs of others, peace-keeping, But a parent endeavoring to explain diplomacy thus would run into a major obstacle. The themes upon which diplomacy is built are antithetical to a five year-old who is basically interested in the satisfaction of his needs regardless of means. How to teach diplomacy to a five year-old boy, then? Star Wars. "Remember when Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi visit the trade federation ship in an effort to end the blockade of Naboo?" I said to my son, "that was diplomacy." "Oh right," he responded, "then the Neimoidians tried to poison the Jedi, who responded by killing all the battle droids with light-sabers."
So, it's not a fool-proof means of explaining complex adult notions. But, hey, I got the conversation started, right?
Another invaluable key to the intelligence-building in our children is the internet. As a child, I remember asking my parents countless obscure questions about the world. They always seemed to have a satisfying, informative answer. I, now, realize that they might have been making up a lot of what they said. Usually when my boys ask me such a question (and my boys seem to relish asking question that require an absurd knowledge-base), I can provide a pretty good answer (a so-so answer, anyhow). But usually, I say, "good question. Let's look it up." (I have thus far resisted them temptation to say, "let's google it;" such a response would be unnecessarily nerdy). Google did not exist when I was asking my obscure questions to my parents so, they must have been fudging their answers to some extent. But back to my kids, and making them intelligent. By saying "good question, let's look it up," I am both encouraging their curiosity and assuring that we come to an answer that is most-likely correct (I am aware that Google can occasionally be incorrect).
Books are, obviously, a terrific means of gaining information. For both my boys, the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne are excellent in this regard. In each of the books, a brother and sister, Jack and Annie, travel in a magic tree house to different ages or environments to fulfill quests. Whenever they arrive in the the different time/location, Jack and Annie (and thus, the readers) learn facts about historical ages, animals or geographical locations. For instance, in "Good Morning, Gorillas," my boys learned a lot about gorillas. Similarly, they learned a great deal through "Lions at Lunchtime" and "Polar Bears Past Bedtime." My boys often cite Magic Tree-House books when discussing facts about animals. When discussing history, they are likely to cite "Dinosaurs before Dark" or "The Knight at Dawn" or "Revolutionary War on Wednesday." Any discussion of rain-forests is sure to include some mention of "Afternoon in the Amazon." These books are amazing. A first- or second-grader can easily read (and enjoy) them. A preschool or pre-K student can't read them, but would certainly be captivated by the stories. These books are excellent sources of enjoyment/information.
Intelligence (knowledge, curiosity, logic, etc.) is a crucial component to the success of a chid. Helping one's child foster his or her intelligence should be a top priority of any parent. There are many ways to do this. I have offered a few, here. A parent needs to put a positive focus on intelligence whether it be gained through books (Magic Tree House) through experiences (zoos) through the internet or through explanation (via Star Wars).