27 | September | 2011

Although the little person has recovered from his tummy illness both De and the tall person thought he should stay at home today, just to make sure. This was good news. I don’t usually see much of the little person during the week as he leaves early for school and does not return home until 6.00 p.m. He then has two hours of homework to complete each evening so we don’t have much playtime together.

However, I must not think only of myself – we can play later. He has already missed two days schooling and I am worried he might forget how to learn so I suggested that he have some lessons with me. You can see from these photos that he readily agreed!

Okay, what would you like to learn little person? Hmm, no response. I think we have a slight motivational problem. I shall have to try something different. Have you heard that it is possible to learn while you are sleeping? It is called hypnopaedia. The little person said that he didn’t believe me so I told him that in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, hypnopaedia was discovered after a Polish boy, named Reuben Rabinovitch, fell asleep while listening to an English radio broadcast by George Bernard Shaw. When he awoke, he could recite what he had heard, word for word – even though he didn’t know English.

I suggested that we try hypnopaedia. We both lay side by side and I told him to relax and close his eyes and within a few minutes he was fast asleep.

Good, let us begin. I won’t trouble you with the calculus lesson we had but I will just share the ending with you. So, just to conclude little person, calculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals and infinite series. When you wake up you will remember everything about calculus and………you will be so grateful that you will want to reward me! Wake up little person!

He rubbed his eyes and looked at me and said, “To było fantastyczne!” Oh dear, I believe that is Polish for ‘that was fantastic!’ Aldous Huxley was right about hypnopaedia!