Why is spring the best time for planting seeds?
This was the first of 8 questions I had to navigate through.
In a bid to become uncle of the year, I was helping my 8 year old nephew with homeschooling.
I’d just finished listening to him read through a little story (very well mind you) about a father and his daughter.
The story was about a little girl and her time in the garden with her dad, planting seeds, talking about worms, the different seasons and how to prepare soil for planting.
The task was then to answer some simple questions based on the story and bingo – job done!
So, as soon as he’d finished the last sentence in the story, my nephew said…
‘Ok Uncle Benny…. why is spring the best time for planting seeds?’
As I scrolled back to the start of the story hoping the answer would be in there word for word, I was baffled to find out it wasn’t.
After a minute of silence my nephew chimes in with ‘So, what’s the answer?’
‘Gimme a minute mate’ I said, still scrolling through the story to try and find the right answer.
I thought this was going to be a simple exercise of going through some questions and answering them with sentences taken straight out of the script. That’s how it works isn’t it?
After a few more minutes of scrolling up and down, I realised getting the answer wasn’t as straight forward a task as I thought.
I literally re read the whole script trying find the link between the question and answer and still nothing. It barely mentioned anything about spring. Wtf?
Am I dumb? This is homework for an 8 year old. Did i struggle this much when I was 8?
Anyway, I moved to the next question…
Why did the girl and her dad need to get the soil ready first?
To my disbelief, the same problem. What the fuck is this? Why is this so hard?
The questions were put in way that got you to think outside the box, read between the lines and come up with the most logical answer from the information given.
It wasn’t a straight word for word answer you could copy and paste.
I was in trouble. We both were. If I was struggling, how was he supposed to pull the information out and turn it into the correct answer considering it wasn’t so straight forward?
‘Is this even for 8 year olds?’ I said to him.
‘Do you understand it mate?’
‘Yeah I think so’ he said.
‘What do you think the answer is then?’
‘Well, in the winter it’s too wet and in the summer it’s too dry so….’
‘Oh yeah! Nice one. Let’s put that down’ I said.
His answer made sense. It was simple and to the point and was the only possible answer according to the info given.
It was at this time I realised I was in the right room. My little nephew was smarter than me. I never felt so proud and so dumb at the same time.
Anyway the point of my story – if you want to grow and learn as a person, make sure you surround yourself with people smarter than you.
Be with those who inspire you and can help guide you to achieving what it is you’re after. Ones that have been there and done it before and have more knowledge than you.
It requires getting uncomfortable but putting yourself in situations with people that challenge you and teach you is a must if you want progress.
If you’re not surrounding yourself with these types of people, then you’ll forever be ignorant and ultimately stay stagnant in life.
As the saying goes – If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
Even if they’re only 8 years old lol
‘’If you have a body, we can help you’’
Ben
Infinite Fitness Peninsula
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