Children learn by actively using their own prior knowledge to understand new experiences
For Alison Gopnik, children are never passive recipients; they bring their own prior knowledge and experience to every situation. From very early on, children actively try to understand what others are doing and why they are doing it, and adjust their behavior accordingly. They are always active participants in their learning.
To Gopnik, schooling represents only one type of learning, and it’s not one that is superior to other forms. She suggests that other forms of social learning are both deeper evolutionary and more sophisticated. From her perspective, Western middle-class parents are immersed in a parenting culture which focuses on molding children to create a particular outcome (a mindset which Gopnik characterizes as the ‘carpentry’ approach to parenting). These can be categorized as directive-domineering parenting and directive-protective parenting. This fits well with school culture, which has similar aims. The poor child-rearing in societies are necessary to create people who fit the standard roles of traditional society. This isn’t the only way to approach parenting, just as schooling isn’t the only way to approach learning. Young children are not schooled, and yet they learn. For most of human history, children were not schooled, and yet they became functioning adults and learnt how to live in their society.
Children make logical choices based on what they already know when confronted with contradictory information. Gopnik’s theory of learning and child development is sometimes called the ‘theory-theory’ because she argues that children construct their own theories about the world and use probabilistic reasoning to deduct likely answers. Fundamental to the approach is the idea that the child’s own perspective interacts with what they are experiencing, and that learning is always an active process. Studies show how young children learn through observation and listening, make predictions and test hypotheses. This science of learning bears a lot of resemblance to what we see in self-directed children. It’s not any less scientific because the children aren’t being asked to memorize lists.
When we see learning as an interaction between the child themselves, their pre-existing knowledge and their environment, then it becomes clear why each child’s learning trajectory can be so different, and how two children can learn such different things from the same experience. Whereas the cognitive approach to learning overlooks the role of environment in a students capacity to learn something.
References
- Fisher, Naomi. (2021). Changing Our Minds Chapter 2. Learning – Scientists, Processors and Rats (p. 52). London, UK: Robinson Publishing.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Politics / Education / Psychology / Cognitive Science Status:☀️