Loving your child's mind: "A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words"

So today we have a difficult paragraph, and actually Alana has seen it once before, a long time ago. We'll see if she remembers. Um, could you read it? So I put it in the chat. I put a long paragraph in the chat. Uh, could you read it aloud for us please, Alana? Alana's frozen. Maybe if she's frozen, I'll have Sankara read it. Could you read it, Sankara?

Fortunately, my speech does not consist of separate units. When I wish to communicate, So, the thought that today I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street. I do not see them, every item separately. The boy, the shirt, its blue colour, the separate words. I speak often, take several minutes to Sorry, Sankara, you missed a line.

You said, um, I do not see every item separately. The boy, the shirt, its blue color, his running.

Yeah, I, I can see all this is one thought, but I put it into separate words. The speaker It often takes several minutes to disclose one thought in his mind. The whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed.

Sankara, you skipped a line again. You start back at 'in his mind.' Do you see in his mind?

One second. Yeah, in his mind, the thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successfully. Successively, a thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words precisely because thought does not have its automatic counterpart in words. The transition from thought to word leads Through meaning in our speech, there is always a hidden thought, the self-thought.

Thank you, Sankara. Thank you. Your hand is in front of your screen, so we can't see your face. There we go. Thank you. So again, this is a very difficult paragraph. First of all, do you remember this at all, Alana?

Um, that was probably years ago, so no.

Okay, no problem, no problem. Let's go, uh, again, I like to go from 100% understanding, as you could explain every single word, sentence, clause, you know exactly why the author put every word in there. 0% understanding is you're not, you're not sure what language it's in. Maybe it's Polish, maybe Swahili, maybe Mandarin. So if you know it's in English, you're not a 0% understanding. We'll start with Marwa. What percentage do you understand this paragraph right now? 50%, 90%, 10%?

10%.

10%, excellent. Go Sankara, what percentage would you say you understand it?

Maybe 20 to 35.

Excuse me, one more, I didn't hear you.

40 to 45%.

40 to 45%, excellent. And how about you, Ilana?

Um, I don't understand it that much, so maybe about 30, 35, maybe 40.

Okay, um, Sankara, since you understand it the best, could you provide us with, uh, your explanation of what it means? What is this paragraph saying?

It says that, um—

Sankara, could you sit still so we can see your face? You're moving all over and it's hard to see you. So yeah, thank you. So what is it saying?

It says that, um— So actually, I didn't understand it the best. I must actually understand it the worst.

Okay, no problem. This is very, very difficult. Again, it's college-level reading, but I think, I think with work, even kids your age can understand college-level reading. And I know Marwa is younger, so this is even super hard for Marwa. But go ahead, Alana, do you have some ideas?

Yeah, um, maybe it's talking about how the man or the person in this paragraph, like the narrator, like he or she's kind of like the narrator is telling how he wants— he or she wants to communicate the thing that he saw.

Okay, I would say, um, I think it might be useful to read it once again, and you know, sometimes with difficult paragraphs what I do, I've sometimes read the same difficult paragraph 2 times, 3 3 times, 4 times to try to get more and more clarity. So Alana, could you read it for us this time, please?

Read me?

Yep.

Okay.

Thought, unlike speech, docs, does not consist of separate units. When I wish to communicate the thought that today I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street, I do not see every item separately: the boy, the shirt, its blue color, his running, the absence of shoes. I can see all of this in one, though I put it in—

wait, I put it into separate words.

A speaker often takes several minutes to disclose one thought in his mind. In his presence, the whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. A thought may be compared compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words, precisely because thought does not have— has— has—

wait, does not have its automatic—

okay, does not have its automatic—

wait, counterpart.

Sorry, I lost my place. I shouldn't even show words precisely because thought does not have its automatic counterpart in words. The transition from thought to words leads through meaning. In their speech, there is always the hidden thought, the subtext.

Um, does anybody— did anybody get a little bit more this time after a second reading? Okay, I'm gonna help. By the way, there is a typo in the very first sentence. It should read, "Thought, unlike speech, does not consist of separate units." So sorry, where it says "does," that should be "does not consist of separate units." But I think the next sentence is one we should focus in on. And one of my strategies for reading is is I'll focus in on one sentence at a time. So it says, "When I wish to communicate the thought that today I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street, I do not see every item separately." So imagine you see a boy in a blue shirt, a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street. Do you see the whole thing all at once or do you see every piece separately?

Um, when I see something running down the street, I don't really get to see it fully because it's going fast, but it would probably either be separate.

Okay, so I'm thinking, you know, Marwa's sitting there hanging out. When I see Marwa, I see his face, I see his t-shirt, I see the, um, chair behind him. Do you guys see Marwa? Do you see all of him or part of him, or how does that work?

Well, I only see part of him because of the screen.

Yep. Do you see his shirt separately from his face?

A little bit, yeah.

Okay, so this is saying that you do not see every item separately: the boy, the shirt, the blue color. So I guess one thing I wonder is we're talking about the difference between thought and speech. Is there a difference between thought and speech?

Yeah.

What's the difference between thought and speech?

Speech is you say it or do it verbally, and thought you don't.

Okay. And how about seeing something? When you see something, when we see each other on the screen, is that more like thought or more like speech? Okay, um, and when— if, if— so when we are seeing each other, um, you could, you could break it up into, I see Alana's eyes, I see Alana's nose, I see Alana's mouth. Do we first see Alana's face, or do we see all of the parts of her face separately? What do you think, Marwa? Do you see Alana's face all at once, or do you see the parts of her face separately? What do you think, Marwa? Do you see all of Alana's face at once, or do you see the parts separately?

All at once.

All at once. And Sankara is saying that seeing is a little bit more like a thought. Elana, do you have a comment?

Oh no, that is my hand.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I saw something. So that's your brother? Okay. So yeah, what I'm looking at is when it— we want to communicate the thought of seeing Marwa or Sankara or Alana, how is that different when we communicate it with words? Is that slower than how you see it? Would you say we see somebody's face faster than we can describe it?

Yeah.

So it says later on, a speaker often takes several minutes to disclose one thought. And it says, in his mind, the whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. Would you say when we see each other on the screen, it's like instantaneous? You know, we see everybody else's face. I mean, is it instantaneous, like all at once?

For me, it's kind of all at once because sometimes you just have to take one glance.

Okay, and then if you describe it, is it slower to describe somebody than it is to see them?

Yeah, at least for me.

Okay, um, so when it says in response, the whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. Does it make sense that we can see things or think things almost instantaneously, but then when we talk, talking takes time and words take time?

Yes, that happens to me, so I think so.

Okay, so how about the next sentence: A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words.

I think that, um, that is— that means that, um, um, um, it is compared to maybe when it rains or something.

Okay, and what's the comparison to when it rains? How is, um, how is a thought shedding a shower of words? What's a shower? Go ahead.

When it rains, it's basically letting out because it's too heavy, maybe. But when you let out a shower of words, it's because you really, really want to say something.

So right now, are you letting out a shower of words even as you speak? Is this a shower of words?

Yeah, I know, so it's showering.

Would you, would you say that your thoughts, that you, the thought that you just communicated to us was faster than the words that it took to communicate it?

Yeah.

What do you think, Alana? Is Sankara making sense?

She's frozen.

She is frozen. We'll check with Marwa. Marwa, did Sankara make sense just now? Marwa, can you explain what Sankara just said? What's that?

I did not hear it very clear.

Oh, you didn't hear it very clearly? Well, maybe Alana can explain it. Alana, did you understand what Sankara said?

I think so. Um, I didn't hear— like Marwa, I didn't hear everything. But also, wait, do you want me to explain what he was thinking or what I was thinking?

Either one. Which do— which would you prefer?

I'll just do mine since I know more of it.

Go for it.

I thought that maybe that sentence would refer to since maybe in some cases when words pour out of your mouth, it's kind of slow like the rain, like rain going from clouds. Sometimes that's kind of slow. So it's like a comparison like Sankar said.

Go ahead, Sancharl, what were you going to say?

Uh, nothing.

Okay, so, um, okay, um, so let's see, I want to read the whole thing one more time and we'll see if any of you can summarize what it more or less says, okay? Because we've kind of examined a couple of sentences closely. Thought, unlike speech, does not consist of separate units. When I wish to communicate the thought that today I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street, I do not see every item separately: the boy, the shirt, its blue color, his running, his— the absence of shoes. I conceive of all this in one thought, but I put it into separate words. A speaker often takes several minutes to disclose one thought. In his mind, the whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words. Precisely because thought does not have its automatic counterpart in words, The transition from thought to word leads through meaning. In our speech, there was always the hidden thought, the subtext. So the last sentences we didn't worry— we didn't work on, so don't worry if you don't quite get the last two sentences. How about the first part of it, though? Can any of you explain what the first part of this is saying? Up until the last couple sentences?

How do they think and how do they talk?

Maybe the first part means something like, or like I said earlier, he just wants to communicate the thought that he saw that barefoot boy, and then he's comparing words or thoughts and words to rain clouds.

Okay. Um, Sankara, do you have anything to add to that?

No, not really.

Why would he compare thoughts and words to rain clouds? Why do you think— does the part about the boy and this part about words being like rain, are those completely unrelated? Or does the sentence about the boy in some ways relate to the sentence about the cloud shedding a shower of words? Go, Sankara.

Me? I think there is connection except in a figurative In a figurative way.

Excellent. A figure— figuratively. Figuratively. So explain what you mean by that. That's a great word. I'm glad you're using that word. Um, explain what you mean.

Like, in— I can't really explain it.

Do you, Alana, do you know what figuratively means?

No, I don't think I do. I've heard it before, I just don't know what it means.

Can you explain what that word means, Sankara?

It means— I can't really explain it, basically.

Okay. Um, so Alanaq, do you think that the two parts, the two parts of the paragraph are related? The part about the barefoot boy in the blue shirt on the one hand and a thought compared to a shower of words, are those two parts of the paragraph related?

Maybe, since they're in the same paragraph and they're close enough together, maybe they're related.

Can you explain how?

Um, maybe once— wait, I don't know really, this is just a thought, but maybe like once he gets— he or she gets the thought out that he or she saw a barefoot boy, then he starts talking about how you could compare thoughts and words to rain clouds. I don't know, that's just a guess.

Thank you. Marwa, what do you think? Do you have any ideas on any of this? Marwa, are you with us? No? Do you think that this paragraph is too difficult or is it okay to at least try to figure it out like a puzzle?

A bit difficult.

Okay, thank you. I totally acknowledge it's incredibly difficult, just incredibly difficult. I want to acknowledge that, okay? But sometimes I think it's fun just to try difficult things. What do you think, Sankara? Is it okay to try to— try difficult things?

Yeah.

How about you, Elana? Okay.

Yes, I do, because then if you do that, it'll stretch your brain.

Okay, okay. Um, in which case, uh, I'm going to leave us there. You guys made a lot of progress. Thank you very much, and, um, hopefully we'll see you next week, um, to have more fun. Okay, have a good week, you guys. Bye.