Hear and Answer

It happened in 1996. My family stayed in Ujung Pandang, South Sulawesi. My daughter (aged 5) started enjoying reading. She got the ability to read when she was 4. To compensate her hobby, I bought her many kinds of books. Soon series of books become her favourites, The Nature’s Secret Series. The series consisted of 10 books, the secret of elephant, the secret of flower, the secret of earth, the secret of whale etc. At the end of each book there were several multiple choice questions about the book content. For several weeks after dinner or bed time became nightmare to me and my husband. We (included my baby son) were forced to hear questions from my daughter (acted as a teacher) and answered the multiple choice questions. She didn’t permit us to do anything except to hear and answer. The questions were the same of yesterday’s and the night before’s for they came from the same books. I still remember several of the questions are: are there flowers that bloom in the winter?, how big is dinosours?, why sea water is salty? etc. The ritual took 30-40 minutes, until she said ‘that’s the lesson for today’ and went to sleep. We followed what she wanted til then she was bored. Now (age 17, IQ 160) she still fonds of reading.