“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I wonder what you are?”

Do you wonder at the twinkling stars? Or do you find out why they twinkle?

What do you do when a child comes and asks you a question — where does rain come from? Do we jump into explaining the water cycle or do we just enjoy watching the rain and perhaps play in it? Do you observe the clouds with your child and look at their shape? Or do you explain how they are formed?

Nature intelligence is about preserving the fascination and wonder of nature not necessarily getting into knowing why. It is different from Scientific knowledge or what we now refer to as the subject of Science. With Scientific knowledge, the entire focus is on knowing the why and how of everything. Remember that someone’s fascination and wonder led to his/her exploration, discovery and invention. The key then is to make a choice — do we want our child to observe, think and wonder about stuff around them or do we just want them to know the answers.

When I was asked the question, ‘Why do stars twinkle?’, I went back to my schooling days and the terms, light from the sun, refraction, hot and cold layers of atmosphere are terms that popped in my head and I put the terms together to make some sense of it. Now the question is — How important is it to know the correct answer all the time? What if we don’t know the correct answer? Can we live with not knowing?

So the invitation is to observe the world around, ask curious questions and let the questions hang. Now the other angle one could think of is — What happens If the child doesn’t get answers to their questions? Will they stay in the curious zone or is there a chance they might move into the frustration zone and stop asking questions because their feedback loop doesn’t close?

The trick is in striking a balance between empowering them to look for the answers especially those that really spark their interest and being ok with just wondering, fascination and being ok with not knowing without making assumptions or coming to conclusions.

So while as a child, I would’ve been able to mouth the correct answer to the question -why do stars twinkle, I never stopped to observe the night sky. In contrast, as an adult, I cannot answer the question correctly, but I do take the time to drive away from the city to simply watch the stars in the night sky come alive and to be fascinated by the meteors (and perhaps even make a wish or two!). So why not start with my child and let her just remain fascinated?