Listening to Mother

Sometime when we are tackling 11+ questions we may feel we really do need to be creative.
Let us take the scenario where you are working with your child. You are trying to build new associations between existing ideas or concepts. Nothing is appears to be working.

You may be on a rather simple section where you are trying to find a word that can be put in front of a number of words to make new compound words. What ever the clues you offer you are confronted with a blank face. You begin to question your child’s reading age, vocabulary, attitude, previous education and your own ability as a teacher. You begin to pray that something will suddenly click.

When the two of you have achieved the answer you will feel so relieved and happy that you will be certain that your child’s intelligence has been inherited from you. You will feel good about yourself and very proud of your child.

At other times you will wonder whether creativity and divergent thinking can ever be taught. No matter how often you explain something, or whatever the words you use, it sometimes seems that there is simply no connection with the question – and certainly no assimilation of new ideas.

This may be the time to be a little divergent in your thinking. If something is not working it may be time to make a change. You may choose to attempt the same bank of questions on a different day. It may even be the time of day that is causing the problem.

You walk away from the situation and turn on the television – to catch the middle of an important newscast.

“Good afternoon. We have just heard about the introduction of a machine that will enable children to pass eleven plus examinations. Reliable sources have confirmed that any child can pass the eleven plus examinations after coming into contact with this so called `miracle’ machine.”

(Camera cuts to a close up of a smiling child holding a certificate.) The child speaks:

“Thank you mother for buying me the new eleven plus machine. I will always listen to you again.”