I was having quite an afternoon with my son. We had Cub Scouts this evening so we were pressed for time. He had to do his homework and part of it required him to memorize 2 short poems (only 4 lines each). I explained to him how to memorize things (line by line) and he kept on having a meltdown while trying. His problem was that he wasn't merely trying to memorize these poems, he was trying to spit them out as fast as he can and was getting tongue tied in the process.
We've been having a couple issues with our oldest. The first being that my almost 9 year old seems to think he's smarter than his mom and dad. Yes, I know this isn't going to stop anytime soon, if ever, but it's incredibly frustrating when we're trying to help him with homework and he won't listen. Too smart for his own good. Second, when something is the least bit challenging he quits. This can be video games, art, or even schoolwork, although with the schoolwork he has no choice and just makes everyone's life hell while he's doing it.
So I lost my temper a bit with the meltdown. When I noticed my normally calm husband starting to lose his temper I tried another tactic...after all one of us needs to remain calm! I told him how smart he is and that it's a problem when he quits when things get hard, because they WILL get hard throughout his life. I explained that he needs to persevere and I made the comparison between what he was doing now in memorizing these short poems and actors having to memorize their lines.
My children are freaky Doctor Who fans like me so I used the relatively recent fact that one of the Doctors (David Tennant) had played the role of Hamlet on stage. I told him that not only did David have to memorize an enormous amount of material, but that the material was incredibly challenging because it's not the way we speak today. Additionally, David had to know when to say his lines and deliver them with feeling and not just rattle them off as quickly as possible. He seemed interested in the comparison and did calm down enough to learn the poems before Cub Scouts.
After Cub Scouts I told him that speed only comes
after memorization. I then told him that because of how he's been about quitting when he meets a challenge that we are going to do something
very challenging. We are going to memorize one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I haven't decided which yet, but it will be one of his more popular ones. After he gets the memorization down, we'll work on delivery. I then remembered a clip that David Tennant was in with a costar, Catherine Tate, and decided to play it for him. It's an awesome clip for Doctor Who fans. Lots of Who remarks and it ends with Tate's annoying schoolgirl character rattling off a Shakespearean Sonnet as quick as she could. He got a giggle and I never get tired of watching it.
The clip is from a charity drive that is done annually in Britain, Comic Relief - Red Nose Day. So that's what the numbers in the upper right are...the phone lines from 2 years ago. It takes a bit to load, but it's so worth it!
I'll have to post how the sonnet memorization goes!
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