I happened to come across a book titled "The tortoise and the hare" the other day. One of my kids' obviously, and left on the floor in typical fashion. As I negotiated my way past the book and the various other obstacles on the floor(no, I was not going to do their work and pick it up, they have got to learn, it's not about me being lazy, understand), I found myself recalling the story so familiar to most of us, being one of the favourite moral-containing stories for children.
We all know it right? The arrogant hare boasts of his speed to the calm and composed tortoise, who challenges the hare to a race. The hare, mocking the tortoise's presumptiousness(is that a word?), agrees without another thought.
The race got off as expected, with the hare racing away to a huge lead, while the tortoise, in his usual, slow, steady self, starts off at a snail's pace, one step after another. The hare is soon out of sight. The hare then thinks to himself, "I can take myself a little nap, and still wake up in time to finish the race ahead of the tortoise." So he settles himself on the grass and dozes off.
Meantime, the tortoise catches up with the hare, moving as slowly as when he started, but just as steadily. And he ambles past the hare and reaches the finishing line first. The hare, waking up too late, realises that he lost and hangs his head in shame.
And the moral of the story: slow and steady wins the race.
Is it, really?
Think about it. I know this is a story to encourage children to keep pushing on and never giving up to achieve what you want to achieve. But I submit that it's probably not the right story to push such a principle. Slow and steady wins the race? Really?
If the hare had done the logical thing and just finished the race before stopping for a rest, would the tortoise have stood a chance, no matter how slow and steady he was? Of course not. There was no way the tortoise was going to catch up. His winning the race was more to do with the hare stopping inexplicably for a rest than anything else. I would say the main character in this story is the hare, and the moral we can learn from this story stems from his attitude to the race: Don't be complacent, or you'll lose the race. Or, fast AND steady wins the race. Something like that. Okay, I'm not good at coming up with catchy moral phrases.
I think it's important to differentiate this for the kids, because it is certainly a wrong idea to think that as long as you are steady, no matter how slow you are, you'll still succeed.
What do you think?
