A Wonder in My Childhood

    Albert Einstein liked to tell of a special experience of wonder in his childhood. When he was four or five years old, he saw a compass and was profoundly amazed at the fact the magnetic needle always points to one specific direction. As in the case of Einstein, any simple thing that seems totally natural to adults can approach a child as a fascinating wonder and it can be a powerful momentum to change the child's whole life. In my childhood, I also have as thrilling a discovery as Einstein's.

 

At the age of five, I had a chance to go on a picnic with my mom and her friends. For the first time in my life I could indulge myself into "nature". Actually I grew up in the core of the city Daegu so that my surroundings were far from a natural scene. Moreover at that time things were so hard that parents were busy to make money to live on and so children had to play by themselves. In brief in those days it was hard for children to dream of a family trip.

We reached a suburban area where we crossed a brook and then a thrilling scene came to my eyes. A group of minnows(baby fishes) was swimming back and forth and in my view they looked so marvelous that they attracted my curiosity. In such a wonderful situation, it is natural for a child to want to catch some. So I put my hands into the water, but in vain. Nevertheless I remember I stayed patient because I felt so happy just to watch over them. The fact that I found a new wonder that I had never seen before was so great a pleasure for me. What a marvelous nature that extremely tiny pretty lives were carrying on somewhere outside my world!

 

Returning home, the memory seldom disappeared out of my brain. For several days when I lay back on my bed I recalled my fellow living things over and over. From that time on it became my earnest wish to live in a house with a pond in its garden. And seven years later when I was a 6th grade elementary school boy, I moved to a new school. Unlike the previous school, the new one had a pond in the backyard. Standing in front of that pond, my heart was full of thrills. Unfortunately it was no other than a prize beyond my reach. "No trespass!" it read proudly. That's what a Korean school is! Administrative interests are always above children's happiness and that's one of the reasons why I devote myself to the education movement. As a teacher now I feel ashamed of that kind of ridiculous situation but at that time it was nothing but a cruel violence for a little boy who was so curious about nature and living things. Keep away? What is a school? Is it merely a military installation?

 

Now I'm grown older but still the thrilling scene when I was five remains in my memory so vividly. It is the most precious and wonderful discovery in my childhood just like Einstein's. As the great pedagogical thinker Rousseau said, the best teacher is nature. The younger, the more influential it is. Although unlike Einstein, my experience didn't change my life, it was enough to ignite my sense of wonder about nature. Old as I am, my mental world is always ready to respond sensitively to something curious. Every time that I find some cool music that I haven't known before, I feel happy. The rhythms and melodies make my heart sing. My unusual sensitive emotion, I think, partly results from the wonder in my childhood. I can't ever forget that experience even though 40 years have passed. Maybe I still dream a dream my daily life surrounded with minnows. With those little friends of mine, I'll live in my childhood forever!