Cooper's cookie-capturing contraption
Here at Tutorspree, we're excited to announce the start of a new column on our blog. Remember that post about the 6 year old and the MIT engineer? Today, Cooper and his awesome tutor Lindy are back as Lindy tells us what it's like tutoring a six-year-old "how things work".
I work with a student named Cooper, whose mom wanted him to have a science tutor. Not because he was falling behind, but because he is so far ahead. He's taking things apart without anyone to give him insight into how it works, and without someone to help him put them back together. His mom thought having a guide would be beneficial for Cooper and for her household, which she prefers to remain assembled. I started working with Cooper about two months ago, and our time since then has been filled with firetrucks, spongebob, robots, k'nex, and hide and seek. And, on my end, trying to figure out what works best for him: what keeps him engaged, and asking new and better questions about why things work, why they fail, and how they might be improved.
First, a framework. I think of science, and learning about it, as connecting lots of stars into a constellation (stay with me here). Take magnetism for instance. First you see that a compass needle changes direction, then that a magnet sticks to a fridge but not a countertop. You might see that iron filings align to a magnetic field, but only if it's strong enough to overcome friction between filings and whatever surface it's on. And eventually you can predict new phenomena based on previous observations. But these are fairly large jumps, to see how things are connected. Older students are able to hold all of these ideas and observations in their heads, and move them around to a workable model. Then you have one model, not many many observations; sort of like a constellation - it's easier to pick out a constellation than remember stars individually (at least, it is for me). With Cooper, I try to just deal with a few very close ideas at a time. Otherwise he loses interest, for not seeing any connections, or just gets bored without seeing a clear goal and prize.
So last week, he asked for a robot arm and I replied that we could only eat this cookie if the robot arm picks it up and delivers it. The (unsteady, sorry!) video below is footage of him trying to lift the cookie with the robot arm. Unfortunately, the robot arm started stalling so I stopped filming to fix the arm. At which point Cooper decided that it was his house, and his cookie, and no stalled robot arm could get in the way! He ate his cookie, and wanted to play hide and seek. I can't win 'em all.
Please note the blue hourglass at the top of the frame; it's real, and it's magical.
Stay tuned for colored flames. Cooper loves his firetruck (like the kind kids ride around in, that I'm quite jealous of) and has me set up 'firefighter cadet training' in which I use chalk on his driveway to draw fires and cats stuck in trees, and I time how long it takes him to 'put out' the fires and 'save' the cats. I also draw pancakes, which he pretends to eat. I admit my knowledge of firefighters is limited. But I thought I'd use his interest to my advantage and teach him about flames - namely, what they need to exist, and how you can get different colors with them. I showed him that hand sanitizer (active ingredient ethyl alcohol) burns blue, but this didn't keep his interest more than 5 minutes. So I'm planning something with more chemicals/colors. This blog will be updated with that experiment, provided we don't burn his house down or ruin my phone.
(Note to his mom, if she is reading this: I will not burn your house down, I promise. We might take this experiment outside, though. Why tempt fate/ smoke detectors?)
