Young Descartes
[Dhrithi is an eight year old with a quick brain and her own brand of unbeatable logic. She does not accept facts that are handed down by her teachers or parents. She deduces her own truths about the world with deep intuitive reasoning. I am just a regular mother. I often find myself in a precarious position, trying to match my hand-me-down knowledge with my daughter’s rhetoric. Here is a slice of conversation between us during a long car drive home. I am driving after a long day at work, it is late evening, a good time to raise basic questions about life that we take so much for granted.] Dhrithi: Ma, ma guess what! We are learning about living and non-living things in school. After we go home I need to make a chart. Me: Hmm. So tell me, what are living things and non-living things? Dhrithi: A living thing is something that can breathe, grow, multiply and die. Me: Good. But what does multiply mean? Dhrithi: It is something like ‘grow’. I did not understand properly. We lea...