赤子心 看世界網友森哥的兒子進進就讀幼稚園，老師呼籲家長為學生搜集紙盒，作為手工材料，引導發揮小朋友的觀察和想像力之餘，又學習廢物利用。一星期後進進把製成品帶回家：幾個紙盒疊著平放，中央豎立起另一個長方紙盒，前面斜放著一件承載餅乾的包裝托盤，有點像座金字塔。作品究竟像什麼，森哥完全自看不出所以然，兒子的答案是「碼頭」。森哥的自然反應是「當堂啞了」，為免打擊兒子的自尊心和創意，亦不得不講善意的謊言，誇讚一下兒子。
看了作品的照片，發覺其實進進都頗有心思。我會聯想到那是舊天星碼頭，因為我看到中央聳立的鐘樓－－那個豎立的長方紙盒。跟成人很不同，其實小朋友眼中的世界比較簡單，他們看事物，只會記住重點。我的姪兒三嵗時畫魚，照例都只畫一個橢圓圈，再在一邊加個三角形，因為他只想表達出他心目中的重點，就是魚圓滑流線型的身形，以及用來游泳的尾巴－－那三角形。可能近日電視新聞中經常出現舊天星碼頭鐘樓的畫面，又或者老師給他們看的碼頭照片，就是舊天星碼頭，進進的意識中，鐘樓很自然就代表了碼頭，其他的都是枝節。能想到用包裝托盤做樓梯，亦看到進進都頗有心思，證明他已經觀察到樓梯與包裝托盤的共通點－－都是一級一級的。
早前聽同事講了一件她在朋友家中探訪時見到的有趣事。她朋友有一個八九個月大的兒子，正在四腳爬爬、誓要探查遍家中每個角落的階段。小朋友在這個年紀，父母們都會四處巡視，注意排除家中一切容易撞傷孩子的危險角落，但往往又總有些「漏網之魚」。她到訪時，開門的是朋友的太太，而她朋友正在跟著兒子手腳並用的在地上爬行，又不時一臉好奇似的抬頭四處察看。她朋友笑著跟她說，他不是在跟兒子玩，而是在進行著一項非常任務－－檢查家居安全，因為只有這樣四腳爬爬，才能從兒子的高度，看到一切潛在的危險角落。她朋友的說話，的確發人心省：要從孩子的角度看世界，才能明白孩子心。
其實，每個成年人都曾經是小孩，只是我們的「赤子之心」，是否已經遺落在某個塵封的角落？
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引用網誌：「仔仔的作品 - 碼頭」 by 森
See the World through the Eyes of a Child
This is Chung's second year in kindergarten. Chung is the little boy of my blog-mate Sam. In order to spark the imagination and creativity of the children, the teacher had asked the parents to prepare some used paper boxes for the art class. A week later, Chung brought home the result of his own creation. It was made up of a pile of boxes, with an cuboid piece standing upright on the top at the middle, and a plastic biscuit packaging tray placed at an angle to the horizontal at the front. Sam had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be until Chung told him that "it is a ferry pier, Dad". "Speechless with a wide-opening mouth" was Sam's immediate reaction, but he managed just in time to make up a white lie by praising the boy of being creative and smart, something very important in nurturing the boy's self-esteem and creative mind.
By looking at the picture of Chung's creation, I found that he was actually rather thoughtful. It made me think of the old Star Ferry Pier at Central, since I could see the central upright cuboid piece being the Clock Tower. Unlike the adults, children have a much simpler view of the world. They only see the main part(s) of each thing. When my nephew was three, his drawing of a fish was always an ellipse with a triangle on one side, high-lighting the two main physical features of a fish, the round and stream-line body with a triangular tail for swimming. It was possible that the recent frequent appearances of the Star Ferry Pier Clock Tower on the news or the pictures of that being shown by the teacher in the art class had impressed Chung so much that the idea of "Clock Tower = Ferry Pier" had rooted. Using the biscuit packaging tray to represent the steps in front of the pier showed Chung's ability to correlate the similarity between the two – both being step-shaped.
My colleague told me an interesting story about her recent visit to her friend's house. Her friend had an 8-week-old son, though still a hands-and-knees crawler, was in the mood of exploring every single corner of the house. Once the baby was on the move, parents would make special safety precautions around the house in order to make it baby-proofing. However, there would always be something that had been overlooked. When my colleague entered the house of her friend, he was actually crawling after his baby son on the floor, looking upwards and around from time to time like a curious baby. He was not playing with his son, as he said smilingly, but carrying out an important task - checking out all spots of potential dangers to a crawling baby in the house, and the best way to spot potential dangers is to get down on one's hands and knees and crawl around looking at the house from a baby's eye view. See the world through the eyes of a child, and that is the only way you can truly understand his/her mind.
After all, we all have been children, but where have your pure and innocent heart of a child gone? Left in some dusty and forgotten corner of our past, perhaps .
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