Web of Learning: Child as Model
I have read many books celebrating life and viewed scores of natural wonders around the world; but watching children grow and learn, witnessing their insatiable thirst for first-hand experience, has proven to be the most fascinating discovery in my life’s journey.
Their little hands stretch out for touch; fingers open and close before they understand grasping and the usefulness of their unique opposable thumbs. Eyes wander aimlessly, then fix suddenly on a bright color or moving shape and soon learn to seek out a mother’s voice; beginning a life-long practice of scoping the environment for useful and interesting things.
And I have marveled at a child’s endless experimentation with the world; the tasting and touching and smelling it seems to be absorbed in a wonderfully random way.
It’s like watchi
ng the brain playing. We see in a child a model of the brain’s favorite approach to learning; receiving stimuli, developing patterns, creating meaning.
A child is pattern-making through random activity; through experiencing the environment without rational judgment or expectations. All incoming information is equally vital, freely absorbed and unevaluated. It is simply drawn into the growing brain, establishing the formation of brain-cells, dendrites, axons and synapses; laying out maps for future journeys.
excerpted from: The Web of Learning, soon to be published
