If we want to advance lifelong learning, we should have a look at the world’s best learners. Who are they? Alison Gopnik, Andrew Meltzoff, and Patricia Kuhl give us an answer in their book The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn: “Scientists and children … are the best learners in the universe. And that means that ordinary adults also have more powerful learning abilities than we might have thought. Grown-ups, after all, are all ex-children and potential scientists.”
These powerful learning abilities have to be rediscovered, since as we gain age, we lose some of them. Ken Robinson has described how our present education system tends to kill creativity and curiosity, rather than stimulating them. Between the age of 2 and 5, a child asks on average 40.000 questions in order to understand the world. There are few adults who match this record.
To assure lifelong learning, we may have to recreate some of the conditions of early childhood. That does not mean shaping children to turn out a particular way. This type of “parenting” won’t make children learn, according to Alison Gopnik. Caring parents, first of all let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.
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