Learning: Definition game

Dear Miru,

I taught you definitions and how to describe something without using the word for it. It is a game now, but later you’ll understand why that is useful. You are good at it. I asked you to describe an ice-cream and you said a thing that children eat by licking and that is very cold. I asked you what a house is and you said a square with windows (because that is how you draw it). I showed you round houses and houses in all sort of shapes (you like shapes), including the shape of a violin. I asked what all these houses had in common and we figured out walls and roof. Without a roof, the house is broken, but maybe we can have a house with only a roof? So, we arrive at a building with a roof where people live.

Definitions should be introduced in such a way as a game where we make them up ourselves and test them together. Never, ever rote-learned. That is a crime against creativity, an abhorring and soul-crushing practice that intoxicates the very lifeblood of an independent mind and nibs prodigy in the bud.

A rant is a very angry talk on something we deeply care about.

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