My kids will tell you, with rolled eyes and exasperated sighs, that one of my favorite mantras is "haste makes waste." Both older children have memorized the words, if not the more important idea behind the words.
Imagine my glee when Madeleine and I came across the following poem in our grammar text this morning. How many times can I recite this poem to the kids before the eye rolling and exasperated sighs start accompanying it?
"Work"
Anonymous
Work while you work,
Play while you play;
This is the way
To be happy each day.
All that you do,
Do with your might;
Things done by halves
Are never done right.
Monday, September 24, 2007
"Work"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Your poor, poor kids. I'm joining their rolling eyes and exasperated sighs. I can only imagine how much you enjoy eliciting the eye-rolling and sighing.
What happened to "whistle while you work!?!" ...and "to every job that must be done, there is an element of fun!?" This poem could be used against me as a torture device, I think. Play, I say! Play!!! *giggle*
Ah, but I agree with you, Terri, about finding the element of fun. I don't mind if the kids find a way to enjoy doing what they're doing, or making a game out of it.
The last two lines of the poem were my favorites because the problem we have in our house isn't that the kids are trying to find fun in their work, but simply that they're trying to finish it and only putting minimal effort into it and doing a shoddy job. That's why "haste makes waste" is such a favorite saying of mine; the kids usually end up rushing through whatever they're doing and having to redo it (a theme that M's teacher last year brought to our attention over and over and over...). So my reading of the poem, and why I loved it, was that it stresses the importance of taking your work, whatever it is, seriously and doing it well. Doesn't mean it can't be fun, but it should be done well, a lesson (sorry, Dad) I wish had been stressed to me more as a child.
Post a Comment