Ejercicio 1 — Text A: How a Child Lives the Present
Comprensión escrita7 puntosText A
How a Child Lives the Present
I took my two-year-old grandson, Jason, to the park where he could run around and see the duck pond. My goal was to get him outside for a while and teach him about the ducks. They’re actually geese, but duck pond sounds cuter, so that’s what we call it. Some neighbors have seen frogs in it, and even snails! Swans settled in the pond some time ago. Many ducks too, but one day the ducks flew away and never returned.
Two-year-olds don’t need goals. That was the first of several lessons I learned that day. Jason had a sense of wonder. As soon as we got out of the car, he looked up at the sky. He found joy in watching the big, pillowy clouds drifting across the sky. I’d forgotten how hypnotic clouds could be. Next, he stared at the oaks and the willows and watched their leaves rustle in the wind.
His curiosity was constant, intense. He was always on the search for sticks, big and small. A stick could be used for many things. He scraped the ground with them or waved them in the air like a flag. Jason said hi to everyone. A few 4- and 5-year-olds weren’t sure how to respond. But they all said hi back. His emerging language skills are typical for his age, part vocabulary and part babble. He tried to start conversations with more enthusiasm than success. It was clear he didn’t care what people looked like, how old they were, or whether they said hello first.
My biggest revelation was that Jason was fully present no matter what he was doing —looking for sticks, running across the lawn, or looking at the sky. He was completely and absolutely in the moment.
Adapted from “Right Here, Right Now,” Stanford Magazine, July 2023, <https://stanfordmagazine.org/contents/right -here-right-now>