The hundred languages poem refers to the different ways of how a child learn and expresses themselves metaphorically.   The word “hundred” is not to be taken literally, instead it is symbolic to represent and infinite number of ways of a child receive information and produce information.  

“No way. The hundred is there”. It seems to suggest that adults or even teachers fail to see that side of a child. If they were to spend time to stop and listen and observe, they would find the various creative ways a child has inside of them. “The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking” seems to suggest there is definitely more than one way a child receives and express themselves (languages), more than one way a child explore and create using their “hands”, more than one way a child thinks and perceives (thoughts), more than one way a child enjoys (play) and lastly more than one way a child expresses (speaking). This whole paragraph seem to support the author’s claim in the previous paragraph which states “No way. The hundred is there”, suggesting to adults out there to take time to explore and observe children. 

“A hundred always a hundred ways of listening, of marvelling, of loving, a hundred joys for singing and understanding, a hundred worlds to discover, a hundred worlds to invent, a hundred worlds to dream” continues to support the claim of how a child possesses a hundred ways of expressions and exploration. “A hundred ways of listening, of marvelling, of loving” tells the readers that a child may not look like they are listening but they might just be, just that it could turn out a different way we expected it. It also suggest that a child marvels and love in different ways. What could be common or normal to us, could just be interesting and awesome to a child. The way they love could just tell us how they construct thinking and concepts of human relationship in their minds. “A hundred joys for singing and understanding” continue to support the claim of the different ways a child expresses (particularly the joy in music) and the different ways a child perceives information. “A hundred worlds to discover, a hundred worlds to invent” suggests to the readers that a child possesses infinite creativity. The paragraph closes with “a hundred worlds to dream” to suggest that a child is not limited by the “no” in life and possesses endless possibilities to different dreams. 

The next few paragraphs focuses on the rigidity of education system and how it “limits” a child and rob them of their creativity to dream, expresses and receives information to generate new ones. It seems to targets generally adults, parents, teachers and the education system, advocating for the cause of a child’s freedom to express. “They steal ninety-nine” was repeated twice. Once was to introduce the way the education system limits a child’s freedom of expression and exploration to suggest the kind of robots they are making such that “to love and to marvel” were arbitrarily controlled to only allowed during “Easter” and “Christmas”. They “separate head from body” suggests that information were only allowed to be understood through that one way of “mental absorption” rather than exploring through hands. The second time “they steal ninety-nine” was to convey the irony of asking a child to explore the world out there yet limiting them in their ways of exploration. 

The next paragraphs continue to asserts that the education system separates and categorizes subjects and concepts. They do not seek to try to even link ideas together holistically yet they  “tell the child” the “hundred is not there” (asking them to “stop” searching), limiting their potential to link and make sense. 

The poem ended with the same sentence as the first paragraph “No way. The hundred is there”. It again reemphasize and suggest to the readers to think again, what we are killing every day in the children (creativity, possibilities, potential). 

As teachers, our objectives for children to achieve in our lessons could be made into various ways of exploration (combining the head and the body, thinking with hands). For example, if my objective for a child is to be able to recall sequence of steps and to independently create an end product, I could embed this into a cookery class. Children could be asked to make an apple juice. First, teacher demonstrates how to make apple juice and writes instruction on whiteboard (cut apple, blend apple, pour apple juice out). Children were then left with materials (knife, apple, blender, cups) to independently complete task. Whiteboard instructions were left there to aid child to recall. Besides achieving the objective of child recalling sequence of steps and independently completing a task, child also gets to achieve the objective of fine motor skills such as cutting and pouring. 

There are more than one way to achieve the above objectives. Teachers could even modify and change the lesson to dough making or collective art painting, yet the same objectives could be achieved. To facilitate creativity, a variety of materials such as the number of paint colours could be made available so that children are not limited to what the teacher demonstrated