My grandfather often quoted me a Russian proverb: ‘the slower you go, the further you get’. But he also taught of the importance of making the most of the time you had.

After this mornings story (in the post below) this story came into my inbox curtosy of the fabulous Doug Lipman. I needed to hear it - did you?

Seems tea cups and the space between tensions (between hot-cold, full-empty, fast-slow) are the themes today:

The cold in NY perhaps? Maybe. Or just it is what it is. Lessons for the day…

The Cup of Tea

One day, a student knocked on the door to his professor’s office. "Professor," the student said, "I’m taking your class about intellectual development. But you haven’t told us anything about how to facilitate intellectual breakthroughs in children! When will we cover that?"

The professor said, "Sit down a moment. Here, have a cup of tea." The student lifted the offered cup to his lips, and then quickly put it down. It was too hot!

The professor began to speak:

"I understand what you are asking. After all, it is so sweet, when a child has a breakthrough! Think about an infant, who can only conceive of what is present. If a ball rolls under a chair, for example, the ball ceases to exist for the infant. But then one day, the child follows the ball under the chair - and it’s still there. It’s a breakthrough! The child has learned a new secret of the universe: the ball may still be under the chair!

"But the next day, the ball rolls completely under the chair and out behind it. The child looks under the chair; no ball! Once again, the ball does not exist.

"Then, a week later, the child sees the ball behind the chair. Ah, a new secret! The ball can be under the chair OR it can be behind the chair.

"Day by day, week by week, the child learns new tricks about where the ball can be. One day, all those little secrets combine to form a bigger secret, a meta-secret: the ball is always somewhere. What a breakthrough!

"Is this an ending point? No! In the coming weeks, the child discovers that other things are always somewhere - including the food the child drops, the family cat, and even mommy! One day, all THOSE secrets combine to form an even higher-level secret: everything is always somewhere!

"So it continues. Each breakthrough - each new level of secret - leads to experiences on that same level; we can call those experiences ‘horizontal exploration.’ Ultimately, the experiences on that level combine to form a first secret on a new level. That’s ‘vertical’ progress, leading to a new level.

"Here’s the key: no vertical breakthroughs happen without the horizontal exploration. The two are as intertwined as chicken and egg.

"All this is the basis for Jean Piaget’s famous four-stage theory of intellectual development in children. When Piaget himself came to the United States, he was asked, ‘How can we help children move more quickly from one stage to another?’

Piaget gave his enigmatic smile and said only, ‘That is an American question.’"

When the professor was done talking, he took a sip of his tea.

Still waiting for an answer to his question, the student held his own tea up to his lips. It had grown cold.

The professor’s eyes met his.

The student said, "Oh! The moment to drink the tea was when it was neither too hot nor too cold! You mean, all I can do is to notice when the child needs horizontal exploration, and then to provide a rich environment for it?"

The professor smiled an enigmatic smile. "Very good!" he said. "You may have just had a breakthrough!"

The Cup of Tea (C) Doug Lipman

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 5:23 am and is filed under knowledge & wisdom, stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.