Awhile back, I read a list of 13 ways to raise a non-reader. If you know where I might have read it. please let me know so I can give credit where it’s due. The list inspired me to create a lost of 10 ways to raise a non-scientist.
1. Tell your child that you were “never good at science” or thought it was hard.
2. Join your child in questioning why he/she “needs to know this stuff.” After all, you didn’t learn it and you did just fine.
3. Encourage your child to spend as little time outdoors as possible.
4. Discourage your child from taking things apart and any activities resembling “tinkering.”
5. Never, ever allow a mess to be made, inside or outside of your home.
6. Don’t allow friends and relatives to purchase gifts such as tool boxes, chemistry sets, bug boxes, or microscopes.
7. Focus all family outings around movies and sports. Never consider a museum, zoo, aquarium, nature center, camping trip, hike, or walk along a beach or through a woods.
8. Discourage questioning of any nature. It takes too much time to look things up. That type of activity should be left for school, anyway.
9. Encourage your child to choose a profession or vocation on the sole basis of how little education it will require. Education is expensive and *you* aren’t paying for it.
10. Scientists and science majors are geeks and nerds and have no hope for a normal life. Be sure your child realizes this.
Got any you’d like to add? I’d love to hear.
Nice list of science what not to do’s! Thanks for sharing it. Here is the original list of how raise a non-reader.
Unlucky Arithmetic: Thirteen Ways to Raise a Nonreader
BY DEAN SCHNEIDER AND ROBIN SMITH
March/April 2001 The Horn Book Magazine
Denise