The adults had high expectations of the children; they assumed they had the capacity to understand complex topics, and therefore invited them into serious conversations and meaningful work, believing them capable of growing competent rapidly.
I agree that children are capable of understanding complex topics, and we should take children far more seriously.
When my kids were young, I exposed them to a wide range of advanced concepts in fields like physics and philosophy. I never “pushed” my kids. Rather, the kids asked questions (usually during car rides and at bed time), and I answered them honestly. For example, when my seven-year-old asked if time travel was possible, I introduced him to the topic of special relativity. Honestly, he picked up the ideas more quickly than most adults would. I think the reason for his aptitude wasn’t that he was a “genius,” but rather that he still had enough imagination to accept a notion like time dilation. In other words, it is often easier for children to understand “big ideas” because their minds are not yet rigid and closed-off.
A subset of other moms, and even some teachers, would say things like
“You taught your son about what???” or “A child can’t possibly understand that!” or “No child is ready for that book.”
These adults were highly critical of exposing kids to advanced concepts “too early.” By contrast, my thoughts were that there is no such thing as “too early.” Yet the underestimation of children seems endemic. For instance, I remember one year at the elementary school science fair, I heard the judges discussing my son’s project as I walked to the restroom. They concluded that “It was amazing, but no child could have done that.” However, the truth was that my husband and I didn’t even understand our son’s project until he slowly explained it to us the night of the science fair. (And we couldn’t have helped with something we hadn’t even understood.)
Fortunately though, society is not doomed to forever underestimate its youngest members. I remember from my own childhood that most people thought it was ill-advised to expose children to a foreign language before high school. (The idea was that foreign languages were far too advanced for children to pick up, and children would be confused from early exposure.) Yet eventually people realized that young children are actually better at learning foreign languages than older children, let alone adults. Furthermore, if children don’t learn a word of French on their first day in French immersion school, nobody says
“I told you they were too young. That was completely over their heads. You shouldn’t push them to understand anything so difficult. Those poor kids.”
Instead, people say things like “Just having exposure to something they cannot yet understand is good. It will open their minds and prepare the way for tomorrow.”
My hope is that we will eventually take that lesson and apply it to topics outside of foreign languages.
As to my own sons, who are now young adults, early exposure to big ideas didn’t hurt them. They are both curious, philosophically-oriented, self-directed learners, who truly care about the present state and future of humanity. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if my oldest son—who graduated from Princeton last year with a major in computer science and as many elective philosophy courses as he could fit into his schedule—hadn’t told me about the Less Wrong website in the first place.
So thank you to Karlsson for the research and insights. My stories might be anecdotal, but I think they reflect broader issues—such as the way most of society underestimates the intellect of children—and how we can independently overcome these issues, while also advocating for societal change. Our children can be exceptional if we stop holding them back.
Thanks for sharing this! That’s a beautiful anecdote. When I worked as a teacher, I would let the 6-year-olds give me questions and we’d investigate them together; we covered some pretty advanced topics: evolutionary theory, the basics of Newtonian mechanics, electricity, the atomic theory etc. The kids and parents loved it but I ended up on collision course with the some of the other teachers.
Also, I’ve taught my five year old a second langauge through immersion—which feels like a free lunch. Just show films in the other language, and speak it at home every other day, then get some friends in the language, and voila, you never have to struggle with that. She now does this on her own, trying to learn English this way by restructuring her environment.
What type of program did you use for your five year old for language acquisition? I want to start a similar course of language with my three year old. Were you programmatic or was it just immersion? Curious if you have any resources. For context, the language I want to teach is Spanish. It’s a second language for me and I’m reasonably fluent after a dozen years of school and several months of immersion in South America. I’m a few years out of practice, however… Thanks!
Just immersion. I did some Duolingo for myself so I would be able to speak some to her, but the rest was just letting her see films in the language like 2-3 hrs a week for two years. Then we found her friends who spoke the language—let her play with them for like 100 hrs. Now she’s pretty fluent, at the level of a native kid a year younger than her or so.
I agree that children are capable of understanding complex topics, and we should take children far more seriously.
When my kids were young, I exposed them to a wide range of advanced concepts in fields like physics and philosophy. I never “pushed” my kids. Rather, the kids asked questions (usually during car rides and at bed time), and I answered them honestly. For example, when my seven-year-old asked if time travel was possible, I introduced him to the topic of special relativity. Honestly, he picked up the ideas more quickly than most adults would. I think the reason for his aptitude wasn’t that he was a “genius,” but rather that he still had enough imagination to accept a notion like time dilation. In other words, it is often easier for children to understand “big ideas” because their minds are not yet rigid and closed-off.
A subset of other moms, and even some teachers, would say things like
“You taught your son about what???” or “A child can’t possibly understand that!” or “No child is ready for that book.”
These adults were highly critical of exposing kids to advanced concepts “too early.” By contrast, my thoughts were that there is no such thing as “too early.” Yet the underestimation of children seems endemic. For instance, I remember one year at the elementary school science fair, I heard the judges discussing my son’s project as I walked to the restroom. They concluded that “It was amazing, but no child could have done that.” However, the truth was that my husband and I didn’t even understand our son’s project until he slowly explained it to us the night of the science fair. (And we couldn’t have helped with something we hadn’t even understood.)
Fortunately though, society is not doomed to forever underestimate its youngest members. I remember from my own childhood that most people thought it was ill-advised to expose children to a foreign language before high school. (The idea was that foreign languages were far too advanced for children to pick up, and children would be confused from early exposure.) Yet eventually people realized that young children are actually better at learning foreign languages than older children, let alone adults. Furthermore, if children don’t learn a word of French on their first day in French immersion school, nobody says
“I told you they were too young. That was completely over their heads. You shouldn’t push them to understand anything so difficult. Those poor kids.”
Instead, people say things like “Just having exposure to something they cannot yet understand is good. It will open their minds and prepare the way for tomorrow.”
My hope is that we will eventually take that lesson and apply it to topics outside of foreign languages.
As to my own sons, who are now young adults, early exposure to big ideas didn’t hurt them. They are both curious, philosophically-oriented, self-directed learners, who truly care about the present state and future of humanity. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if my oldest son—who graduated from Princeton last year with a major in computer science and as many elective philosophy courses as he could fit into his schedule—hadn’t told me about the Less Wrong website in the first place.
So thank you to Karlsson for the research and insights. My stories might be anecdotal, but I think they reflect broader issues—such as the way most of society underestimates the intellect of children—and how we can independently overcome these issues, while also advocating for societal change. Our children can be exceptional if we stop holding them back.
Thanks for sharing this! That’s a beautiful anecdote. When I worked as a teacher, I would let the 6-year-olds give me questions and we’d investigate them together; we covered some pretty advanced topics: evolutionary theory, the basics of Newtonian mechanics, electricity, the atomic theory etc. The kids and parents loved it but I ended up on collision course with the some of the other teachers.
Also, I’ve taught my five year old a second langauge through immersion—which feels like a free lunch. Just show films in the other language, and speak it at home every other day, then get some friends in the language, and voila, you never have to struggle with that. She now does this on her own, trying to learn English this way by restructuring her environment.
What type of program did you use for your five year old for language acquisition? I want to start a similar course of language with my three year old. Were you programmatic or was it just immersion? Curious if you have any resources. For context, the language I want to teach is Spanish. It’s a second language for me and I’m reasonably fluent after a dozen years of school and several months of immersion in South America. I’m a few years out of practice, however… Thanks!
Just immersion. I did some Duolingo for myself so I would be able to speak some to her, but the rest was just letting her see films in the language like 2-3 hrs a week for two years. Then we found her friends who spoke the language—let her play with them for like 100 hrs. Now she’s pretty fluent, at the level of a native kid a year younger than her or so.