Mushfake

I agree that this is a great example of mushfake and young children are champions at it without even knowing that they are doing it. I have experience working with kindergarten students that do this all the time. My experience is similar to some the previous posts in that a child will approach me with a drawing or writing piece that they are SO proud of, and to me it's incomprehensible. Their papers looked much like the photos presented at the beginning of this thread. An example of mushfake that happened to me recently was when I went to a pilates class. I was mushfaking the whole time because this was my first pilates class and I really didn't know what I was doing or what some of the terms meant that were being used. I do other forms of exercise and this was foreign territory for me, but I didn't want that to come across to the pilates enthusiasts and experts in the room. I agree with Mike that it was definitely a fake it till you make it event.

I remember when I was in preschool, I would draw curvy lines and pretend like I was writing in cursive. At the time, my older brother could already write and was learning to write in cursive. My parents also used cursive to sign documents. I wanted to fit into their discourse of being able to use cursive, so I "faked" it. At the time, I couldn't even write normally, but I already wanted to be a part of what my older peers were doing. This is extremely important to us as teachers because mushfaking can show a desire to learn. Someone who pretends like they can read at a higher level than they actually can may be doing so because they actually want to be able to read on a higher level. It is our job as future teachers to identify mushfake and know what to do with it. Instead of encouraging continued mushfaking, we need to provide students with the skills they need to succeed.