Michael Strong asks five-year-old Alana about time. She thinks an hour is about 10 minutes, a day is 3 hours, and confuses months with years. Strong uses gentle questions to draw out her thinking and suggests she observe a watch to understand seconds.
How are you?
Good, how are you?
I'm well. I understand you went to a tournament today?
Yes, I did. I won like one match.
All right, good for you.
Thank you.
Was it hard?
A little bit.
Was it fun?
Yes.
All right. Well, I wanted to see about how you think about time. So first, tell me what do you think time is? What is time?
It's like late at nighttime, early in the morning time, like when you need to go to work, you need to look at the time so you know when you need to go to work or school.
Do you know how long 1 second is?
Like, you go fast and you get there like in 1 second.
Okay. Do you know how long 1 minute is?
1 minute? I do not know. I don't really know it.
How about 1 hour?
1 hour is probably 10 minutes.
And how about 1 day?
1 day is, I think, 3 hours.
Okay. Did your, did your competition take place today or yesterday?
Well, I checked my weight yesterday, and so I competed today.
Okay, is there any chance your competition might take place tomorrow?
I don't know.
You don't know if you have another competition tomorrow?
No, I don't have a competition tomorrow, but I have another one in March.
And is March 2 days away or 3 days away?
I do not know.
Okay, that's okay. Totally okay not to know things. That's why time is interesting. Do you think that your competition took place a second ago or a minute ago or an hour ago or 3 hours ago?
A minute ago.
A minute ago? Okay. So why do you think we measure time?
Um, so we can say like, just like the bag that you put on the couch, 5 years ago, 5 minutes ago.
So do you think it's useful to know how long, how much time has passed?
Um, Yes.
Okay, and remind me how old Logan is.
He is 2.
Okay, do you think— is he 2 minutes or 2 months or 2 years or 2 what? 2 what?
Like, to get him to get him to get like 3 or 4 something.
Is he— when you say he's 2, is he 2 seconds old, or is he 2 minutes old, or is he 2 weeks old, or 2 months old, or 2 years old?
2 months old.
Okay, so he's 2 months old, and you're 5 months old, or—
yeah, I'm 5 months old.
Okay.
5 years, I mean.
That's okay. So part of this is really getting a sense of time, and it's a big thing to get a sense for how much time is taking place. Um, I— have you ever watched a clock to see how quickly time passes?
No.
Um, do they— what was your dad saying?
Since she has a watch, Michael, and she has been kind of learning to tell time there, I think she has months and years mixed up here.
Okay, that's okay.
She has a growing concept of time. Um, what about your watch, Alana, with the hands moving?
Um, that's what he's asking you. I don't really see it go fast, but the green hand, like the, the, like the me on this hand, it goes pretty fast than all the other ones.
I see. So there's one hand that goes faster than the others?
Yeah, and the bigger one, the smaller one goes pretty slow.
Okay, um, so I think sometimes they call the fast one the seconds hand, and every little movement is a second. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 1, sometimes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, something like that is 5 seconds, I think. Does your hand move that fast? I mean, does the fast hand move about that fast?
I do not know.
Okay. That's totally fine. I always like to understand what you understand. So I want to figure out what is going on in your head. And it sounds like you know about time because things like bedtime and lunchtime and dinnertime. And you also know about time because you know days. You know yesterday, you know your competition, you weighed yourself yesterday and your competition was today, right?
Yep.
Okay, well, I think that it's interesting to have you think about time and for you to start to, you know, look at your watch and notice So maybe as an experiment— do you remember experiments?
Yep.
How about as an experiment, you watch your clock, your watch, and see if you can figure out how long a second is. So for next time, you can research and see how long a second is and how long a minute is, okay?
Okay.
All right, well, I'm going to let you go. Congratulations on winning a competition, and I hope you have a lovely week. Just like one match, but that's pretty great. I want to congratulate you on winning one match. Okay, okay, have a great week, Alana. Bye-bye.
