Socratic educator Michael Strong and father Ryan Nohea Garcia
Michael Strong uses Socratic questioning to assess 4-year-old Alana's development across social, language, and math skills. She counts to ten, reads Berenstain Bears, and answers questions in both English and Spanish. Her father Ryan discusses concerns about her age relative to classmates and how their bilingual household shapes her learning.
Chapters
Every once in a while it just needs to restart.
Good, good.
Hey, how you doing, Alana? Hi, Logan.
Kiwi, say how are you.
How are you?
I'm well, I'm well. So, I want to start with Alana. Can you tell me how you are? What have you been doing the last 2 weeks? What do you like to do every day?
What?
What do you like to do?
What do you like to do?
I like to go to the playground.
I bet that's fun. Are there kids at the playground? Yeah. Lots of kids or only a few?
Lots of kids.
Do you like to play with 10 kids at once or 5 kids at once or 1 kid at once?
One kid at once.
Is that because you get to know them better? Or is it hard to play with 5 kids at once?
Um, it's hard to.
Could you play with a million kids?
Well, she would try, that's for sure. Alana is really good at adapting to situations. If there's one child, she makes fast friends and they have a blast. And if there's many children, depending on the activity, she'll play with them all or break off into smaller groups. But she tends to gravitate towards older children. She plays really well with 7 to 9-year-olds. We talked about that a few weeks ago, that I was concerned her being the youngest in her kindergarten class, and you basically said, "Don't worry about it, she'll be fine." And I tend to agree with you. She's doing great. You know, in fact, so she was— Logan and Alana were at their babysitter's on Friday because I had a meeting. And when I picked them up, babysitter actually asked if Alana could stay longer to play with their 10-year-old granddaughter who was just getting off of school. So they did. Yeah, so they— she played with the 10-year-old.
Wow, you can play with a 10-year-old, Alana?
Yeah, I mean, if it comes to it, she can just recite every single line from Moana and every song by heart and sing it at the top of her lungs. Nothing wrong with that.
How many years old are you, Alana? Are you 1-year-old or 2-year-old or 3-year-old or 4-year-old?
I'm still 4.
You're still 4? Yeah. Wow.
Logan, how old are you? 1. That's his party trick. 1.
So, Alana, do you like to read?
Yeah.
What do you like to read?
I like to read the Berenstain Bears.
Oh, I remember the Berenstain Bears. Is it hard to read or easy to read?
It's easy to read.
Oh, you must be a good reader. Do you like Dr. Seuss?
Yeah.
What do you like about Dr. Seuss?
Uh, I'm the Cat in the Hat.
Ah, Cat in the Hat is a very, very good book. Is Cat in the Hat funny? Yeah. Which one's funnier, Berenstain Bears or Cat in the Hat?
I'm glad he has that thingamajigger and I think it's just made out of plastic and strings.
What's made out of plastic and strings?
Yeah.
Say it, they can hear you. Say it louder.
The thingamajigger. Um, the thingamajigger, um, because I think it has plastic and just strings to build it.
Got it. Got it.
Yeah.
So, you know, just to talk developmental psychology with your dad for a bit. So, you know, very often developmental psychologists will talk about how kids are very concrete and not yet abstract, and that is normal. But I always like, if you know, if you know Bloom's Taxonomy, where kind of concrete fact-based questions are the lowest level in terms of thinking skills. And evaluative questions are very high-level. What's— is this better or is that better? And so often, and I have no attachment to the kind of answer, but even when I check in, is Berenstain Bears funnier or Cat in the Hat funnier? You know, that's— it's a really different kind of question. And you know, Alana is thinking about it. I suspect she totally understands the question, but it's a harder question to answer than than just, do you like, what books do you like? It is, it is.
And something that maybe it's our fault, Marlo and my fault, probably mostly my fault. Sometimes like we see that Alana wants to give us the answer that she thinks we want.
Yeah.
And we're really trying not to put that pressure or what have you, but I guess it's inevitable or she's figured out that she's trying to please us and whatnot. But if you just talk to Alana, she definitely understands what's going on. Stop it, Alana, please. And she's thinking that she has strong opinions. She's really good.
I bet. And she's just getting to know me. Although we've been on camera before, I've never really asked her questions directly. And it's actually a huge, intense thing to talk to a strange grown-up. So I think she's fabulous. So Alana, do you like math?
Yeah.
What do you like about math?
Um, and that, and that we sort out math, and that, and that, and that we— what do we do?
No, you tell me. Do you like math? What do you like about math? Is it useful?
I don't know.
Yeah.
What's it useful for?
Um, I'm learning how to, um, math.
So what is 2 2?
4.
You mean like that?
Yeah.
How about 4 plus 1?
Count them up. Use your fingers.
4 and 4, 5.
You mean like that?
Yeah.
Wow, you know what 5 plus 5 is?
5 5 10.
You are amazing! You know what 5 5 is, don't you?
She's good.
Do you know how many toes you have?
Yeah, 10.
And how many fingers?
10.
So if you count 10 fingers, 10 toes, how many do you have total?
I don't know.
What do you think 10 plus 10 is?
Think of the abacus.
10. 10.
When we count by tens, 10.
10. 8. 20. 40.
Oh, I see Dad helping you.
Yeah, no, that was, uh, she had to call in an expert.
That's okay, that's okay. So you are learning math and reading.
Yeah.
And do you also know Spanish?
I do.
¿Cuál lengua es más fácil, español o inglés?
Español.
¿Es más fácil?
Sí.
¿Para toda la familia o solamente para tú?
Solamente para mí y mi papá.
Ah, pero no.
She's helping me with my Spanish. As you know, I have the— I'm the only attorney in San Diego last name Garcia doesn't speak Spanish, doesn't practice immigration law. And we went shopping yesterday at a Mexican supermarket because I like it. It's where they have good fruit and ceviche. And everyone just kind of assumes that you speak Spanish there. They give you the benefit of the doubt until you open your mouth. And Alana had a nice little conversation with a clerk in Spanish, and the clerk looks to me and just talks to me in Spanish. And it was awkward.
Did Alana translate for you?
What, pardon?
Did she translate for you?
I understood what she was saying, I just couldn't really respond fluently or even close to it. So I kind of look like— I mean, I have the Spanish equivalent of like a 4-year-old or 3-year-old, whereas Alana is essentially fluent. And Alana can read in Spanish just as well as she reads in English, if not better, because there's no exceptions. There's no silent Es. There's no funny sounds. So she's doing really well.
So Alana?
Yes?
Is it okay if I ask you questions?
Yeah.
Do you like asking? Do you like it when people ask you questions?
Yes.
What are your favorite kind of questions?
Um, dinosaurs.
You like dinosaur questions. What's your favorite dinosaur?
Um, T-Rex and a Brachiosaurus.
What do you think of Triceratops? Do you like them too? Yeah.
Wait, what's a triceratops?
Oh, 3 horns. They have 3 horns. You've seen those things, they have these big swoop, kind of a swoop. You remember those?
I know that.
I think triceratops are cool. When my son was your age, he loved triceratops. Yeah. Rather than T-Rex.
Yeah.
Do you think that dinosaurs are scary?
Yeah.
Why are they scary?
Uh, um, because they have like big sharp teeth.
The big sharp teeth. T-Rex, I bet, has really big sharp teeth.
Yeah, but it has some tiny arms and some tiny claws.
Isn't that weird? I think it's weird. It's so weird, aren't they?
Yeah.
Have you ever seen a T-Rex skeleton? What? A T-Rex skeleton like in a museum?
No.
You know, in museums they actually have skeletons. You know what a skeleton is?
No.
Yeah, you do.
Oh yeah, the bones. You know, the bones. You like just the bones from the dinosaurs?
I just like the bones of the dinosaurs.
They're pretty weird critters, aren't they?
Yeah, she just doesn't recall the skeletons that we saw at the Natural History Museum a little while ago. We'll have to go back and look at them again.
Yeah, no problem, no problem. So just to talk to Ryan a bit more. So I'm very much kind of exploring, you know, she is very capable and intelligent and sort of exploring the boundaries and, you know, just talking to her like a normal person. Sometimes she gets things, sometimes she doesn't. But I see her, you know, her mind is just totally active.
Yeah, she's getting more comfortable. You can tell her voice is getting louder. She's speaking more quickly, a little bit less shy. So she's doing really good, Michael. I am so proud of her. It's like such a big load off our shoulders as parents that A, she loves to learn, and B, she can read.
Very cool.
She can just, you know, knock off a heck of a lot off of our learning curve.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So I see today as just sort of a warm-up with Alana. You know, again, in the interest of keeping it short, we can wind up pretty soon. When she's not around, you and I can kind of go deep on her education. But yeah, I'm really eager to kind of engage Alana on a regular basis because I think—
let's do it, let's do it—
she's ready to fly.
Yeah, and even if like maybe we could prepare for a call by just reading about certain subjects or whatnot, we could do that. And that's really neat with the book too. Actually, one of our— what is your favorite thing to color these days?
Your pages of your book.
Our book, yeah. I print out the pages of the black and white book that I'm writing, the second verse of the ABCs.
Yes.
And she colors it. And it's one of her favorite books to read. So we'll read it on my laptop. And she asks the questions. I do the answers. And we read it the other way where we switch.
Okay, well, how about the next time she's available, maybe we check in a little bit before to make sure we're all available, and then, uh, and then maybe you guys can read that. I'll read that and we can have a little Socratic seminar on your book with her.
Yeah, sounds good.
Okay, okay, Alana, have a wonderful week. Logan, Ryan, everybody, we will talk to you next week.
Sounds good.
Bye-bye.
