Let all the chemistry teachers rejoice!

So did you ever just...have to tell someone something?  Not a secret that you're blabbing, just something you just will wilt and die over if you don't?  Because you're so shocked, or proud, or whatever it is.

And then you realize that you should probably not ever tell anyone else it?  Ever again? (Because anyone else who doesn't love you oh-so-very-muchly would think you're just being a sassy old bragger and put their fingers down their throats to gag themselves on purpose at your hideosity.)

Well. Good thing I can tell my super popular Swedish bastis, because she really does love me in spite of myself.

So let's just say I may have admitted that my first grader may have perhaps accidentally memorized the periodic table of elements in order and can recite them from memory starting with good ol' hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium...etc.  And YES, accidentally.  This was the freakish thing I had to hash out and ponder.  We were going through the  abbreviations (in order) and seeing how fast we might accomplish saying them (because this is something we think is fun in our house).  I must repeat, yes, I am freakish in many respects, but NO, I do not find it imperative that a youth of this young age memorize the periodic table enough to recite it blindly.  Anyway, one day I was pulling out the cards and said child begins blabbering on the whole list, perfectly in order without seeing the cards at all (as they were still in a stack in my fist).

Well that's rather something else, I say to myself.  Yes, this child is a smarty, but really,  any child could do it - they're all a bunch of sponges anyway and it is the adults who have all of these preconceived notions about what a child is capable of or not.

In truth, when you ponder it a bit, the origin of my shock should have been directed toward myself that I would not expect it to be done.  There is so very much learning in those young ages that it is more of pity that we do not think of this more often.  Children are so capable of learning anything you want to put in front of them, whether that is the recognition of various styles of art, Latin, sentence diagramming, Shakespeare, classical music, long division, world history or pop music, Angry Birds, TV theme songs, Bad Piggies and Mario Kart on the Wii.

Just as parents are responsible for what they put on the table for children to gobble up at dinner, so they are responsible for what they put on the table for children to gobble into their brains.  

Might I suggest a delicious meal of the periodic table and some Latin on the side?  It's delicious.  (Do you think they've made "Angry Birds - Periodic Table" yet?  Hmmm...)

Peace, love and its really nunc aut numquam,
Ms. Daisy