How We Learn
Outside of my office window a young girl is jumping in and out of brightly colored squares painted on the sidewalk. Her mother points to each of the squares and asks how many are there. It takes only a moment over the course of their stroll to Boston Children's Museum, but this stop will help lay the foundation for the little girl's developing math and motor skills. It will join a flurry of other experiences, observations and interactions that will prepare the toddler to enter school ready to learn.
We are born to absorb the world around us. As we grow, we learn to hone that absorbtion -- to focus it on individual goals and pursuits. Learn fractions. Read Tolstoy. Conquer Parallel Parking. As a child though, particularly one under the age of 5, learning is much more unbridaled. Every interaction, every burst of observation, introduces us to new patterns, new skills and new knowledge. We are, in simplest terms, born learning.
In the New York Times Saturday, Berkley Professor of Psychology Alison Gopnik describes how a child's sense of statistical reasoning, experimental discovery and probabilistic logic can all emerge out of play.
Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real-world objects and safe replicas, from dolls to cardboard boxes to mixing bowls, and even toy cellphones and computers. Babies can learn a great deal just by exploring the ways bowls fit together or by imitating a parent talking on the phone. (Imagine how much money we can save on "enriching" toys and DVDs!)
But what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively and imagine most vividly are the people around them. There are no perfect toys; there is no magic formula. Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.
Last Wednesday, United Way introduced Born Learning, a campaign that is about teaching parents to take advantage of these everyday moments to support their children's learning. No expensive toys or flashcards needed, the campaign is about being intentional with each interaction you have with a child, whether it's reading or running errands. To learn more visit bornlearninghub.org or stop by the Born Learning Trail outside Boston Children's Museum.
Learning from the Parent Perspective - 19 Years Later
The beauty of Born Learning™, in my opinion, is that it encapsulates the science of early childhood in everyday language that parents can understand.
When my son was born 19 years ago, I was well-fortified with an arsenal of the latest in child rearing manuals and surrounded by well-meaning family and friends. The advice I received from those close to me, sometimes unsolicited, occasionally contradicted what I read. Even the so-called baby experts disagreed with one another. With so much information out there, how could a new parent ever be confused? Easily.
Even with my professional passion for early childhood, when I was a first time parent, I was not looking for the maximum amount of information possible; I was sleep deprived and a little shell-shocked, and time was not my friend. My heart had also been captured by this sweetly-scented, tow-headed newborn and I wanted to do right by him. I merely needed a little parenting information and it had to be easy to find, clear, simple, provide me with a few options and be relevant for my child’s stage of development.
From my son’s infancy through his preschool years, there were many studies that purported to “build a better baby” (my words). In the early 1990s, social engineers took the results of one study of college students who listened to a Mozart sonata[1] and concluded that since it improved a student’s short-term spatial thinking if played close to the bellies of pregnant women, the mathematical abilities of their infants would be enhanced. The states of Georgia, Tennessee and Florida went so far as to pass initiatives to ensure that parents of newborns received Mozart CDs or that early care and education centers played classical music. These types of developments were followed by commercial efforts to launch Baby Einstein and other educational videos.
One of the researchers who conducted the original Mozart study on college students has since publicly stated, “There’s no scientific data suggesting that playing Mozart to babies is going to make them 'smarter.’” [2] In relation to Baby Einstein and similar videos, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children younger than two should not watch any television, no matter how educational the content claims to be[3]. One very recent study indicates that these videos might actually delay language development in toddlers.[4]
What I appreciate about the information on www.bornlearninghub.org is that it is based on solid research, evaluation and science --- nothing trendy – and it’s easy for the busy parent to follow. We all have different values and capacities that we bring to parenting – it doesn’t matter whether you purchase nutritious baby food in a jar or you puree homegrown organic fruits and vegetables from your garden. What matters most is the quality of the interactions you have with your children. To this day, my son still groans at the sight of the healthy whole grain pasta that was foisted upon him growing up (“Why did you do that to me? It tasted like cardboard!”). This same young man, who now sports a goatee and an earring, still remembers me holding him as a toddler, both of us laughing and twirling around the living room while Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers blared through the speakers, pausing only for the occasional rock’n’roll sippy cup break. These are the moments that truly matter.
[1] Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., & Ky, K.N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365 , 611.
[2] Frances Rauscher, University of California at Irvine, 1999 television debate
[3] Pediatrics Vol. 107 No. 2 February 2001, Policy Statement, pp. 423-426 American Academy of Pediatrics: Children, Adolescents, and Television
[4] BMC Pediatrics, 2009; 9: 34. 2009 May 22. Television viewing in Thai infants and toddlers: impacts to language development and parental perceptions, N. Ruangdaraganon, et al.
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