Reflection on chapter 3: Young Children as Research Scientists, of "Learning All the Time"

This is from the collection of my reflections on three selected phrases from each chapter of John Holt’s book; Learning all the time. An online version of the book could be found here.

Book: Learning All the Time

Author: Holt, John Cardwell, 1923-1985

Length: 169 pages

Published by: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company

Year of Publication: 1989

Edition: Eight, August 1995

ISBN: 0-201-55091-1

Chapter 3: Young Children as Research Scientists

Phrase 1:

Children observe, they wonder, they speculate, and they ask themselves questions. They think up possible answers, they make theories, they hypothesize, and then they test theories by asking questions or by further observations or experiments or reading. Then they modify the theories as needed, or reject them, and the process continues. This is what in "grown-up" life is called the -- capital S, capital M -- Scientific Method. It is precisely what these little guys start doing as soon as they are born. 

If we attempt to control, manipulate, or divert this process, we disturb it. If we continue this long enough, the process stops. The independent scientist in the child disappears. [para 2-3, page 95]

It is not surprising that children use Scientific Method in their process of learning. Scientific Method is just natural way of thinking and leading to conclusions. Children being pure and naturalist in their approach, use the same method. The more important thing is in the later paragraph, where the writers says that helping children in their natural learning process will disrupt their learning. We, being parents or teachers not only don’t give value to children’s natural learning process, also we think that children could only learn when they are facilitated and taught to learn. We think that no reading, writing, speaking and socializing skills could be developed if we wouldn't make them learn in our specific method of bits & pieces. If there are societies which have shown real positive progress through this method of learning then this suggested method is worth experimenting because it requires much less human and material resources as compared to current schooling infrastructure.

Phrase 2:

The mother of J. P., four years old, wrote me a I delightful letter describing how her son goes about building his mental model of the world: … Sometimes the questions he asks sound strange, because he's thinking about things he doesn't have the words for yet, like the other day: "How do cats know to be a cat, when they just eat and aren't there?" I think that means. "How is a specific body form created and maintained without an intelligence-in residence directing the process?" I had a craven impulse just to say. "God does it," but instead I told him I didn't know--let him read about theology vs. evolution for himself. [para 1, page 96]

I really disagree with the author on this point i.e. leaving the kid to discover himself how the man was created evaluating all the prevailing theories himself. If human intelligence would be able to get to the secret on its own, we would not be seeing so many atheist scientists these days. Though the Quran says multiple times to ponder on things how they are created, sustained and made beneficial for the human kind, if the human heart or brain would have been able to identify the Creator of All by itself, there would not be any need of sending angels & Divine Books, and of selecting a few most intelligent minds being the Prophets of Allah to guide the remaining of the mankind. It is so unwise to let free the children to explore everything on their own, even the harmful things or thoughts too.

For instance, if a child doesn't know what a knife does, would any parent let the knife in the hands of their 3 year old kid to explore what that piece of metal does, and by cutting his finger, he would know that it is used to cut things? None of the parents would do that. They would keep the knife away from the reach of children until the age they could be told about the harm kids could have from the knife. Same way, matters related to religion and beliefs cannot be left on kid’s self exploration experiments and the resulting acceptance or rejection of their own theories. They have to be told about the fact (as per the religion or culture) and many things might just be asked them to be remembered whether they make sense to them or not. Not everything could make sense to the little minds, not everything could be tested and verified ever like عہد الست (the eternal promise, which the God took about His oneness in lordship and worship) from all souls of humans and jinns.

Something similar to author's point of view was said earlier by the poet Ghalib too:

اپنی ہستی ہی سے ہو جو کچھ ہو

آگہی گر نہ سہی غفلت ہی سہی

Phrase 3:

Real learning is a process of discovery, and if we want it to happen, we must create the kinds of conditions in which discoveries are made. We know what these are. They include time, leisure, freedom, and lack of pressure. [para 1, page 100]

Just after reading this I got to know what learning actually is. However this definition does not match with the definition of learning available on the web, which defines it as: knowledge acquired through study, experience, or being taught. By this definition, the knowledge acquired may or may not involve the process of discovery. We could say that the knowledge acquired through the process of discovery definitely leads to learning and gaining new knowledge not known earlier.

Another important clue which the writer has given is that discovery takes place in the presence of four factors:

1. Time
2. Leisure
3. Freedom
4. Lack of pressure

Any factor is missing, and the discovery would be doubtful.