Question

When Robert was about two years old, he tried to remove a bottle of milk from the refrigerator but it fell, spilling milk all over the kitchen floor.

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of shouting at him or punishing him, she said, “Robert, what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I have rarely seen so much milk. Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?”

Indeed, he did. After a few minutes, his mother said, “You know, Robert, whenever you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up and restore everything to its proper order.”

After they cleaned up the spilled milk, his mother then said, “You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two hands. Let's go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it.”

The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it. At that moment he knew he didn’t need to be-afraid of making mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just good chances for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about. Even if the experiment “doesn't work”, we usually learn something valuable from it.

Answer the questions

1.What happened to the bottle when Robert tried to remove it from the refrigerator?

2.Who cleaned up the spilled milk?

3.What did his mother encourage him to do in the back yard?

4.How could he carry the bottle without dropping it?

5.After reading the story, what do you think of making mistakes?

Answer 1