Organic Growth in Early Learning: The Forces of Human Nature
Because the desire to learn is intrinsic, it is powerful. Part II of "Rethinking Early Childhood Education."
Stephen H. Stearn, Ph.D. and Susan Sirigatti, October 25, 2020
Review
“Too many schools place a double burden on young children. First, they heighten their stress by demanding that they master material beyond their developmental level. Then they deprive children of their chief means of dealing with that stress—creative play.” This appeared in “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” written in 2009. (Miller, Edward, and Joan Almon. Alliance for Childhood, 2009, p. 49, files.eric.ed.gov).
Today, more than fifteen years later, a large number of preschool programs focus on getting children “kindergarten ready.” What this means is that despite what was written in “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” many preschools serving children 3 to 5 years of age have introduced more rigid curricula and routines, more teacher dominated activities, and even less play time. This report suggests that more has been lost than gained by introducing rigorous and controlled elementary school procedures at earlier ages and at least some balancing of things needs to happen. For certain children, particularly where their families are struggling with job losses and poverty, more than this is needed.
While there is reason to be concerned about what is happening in the preschools for 3 to five- year old’s, particular attention should be focused on children’s first years from 0 to 3 where they are being served by parents in the home and in childcare facilities. In this case, ignoring the findings of the early learning research can lead to more serious long-term consequences. This report shows that we now know that children can and do learn more at an even earlier age than was thought and that a positive early learning environment from 0 to 2 years is vital to children’s health and development.
This paper begins by reviewing the research done by psychologists and neuroscientists on the human brain and on early childhood learning and development over the past thirty years. It then goes on to discuss the important implications of the research for parenting, for early childhood learning, and for children’s healthy development as well as actions and practices that support children and their parents. We include such topics as the role in learning of children’s innate curiosity and intrinsic motivation, nature’s pattern for learning, how approach and avoidance influence learning, children’s need to explore and discover, the importance of encouraging children to question and be creative, the role of praise and rewards, play, guided play and play-based learning, the role of the parent/teacher, the importance of adult-child bonding, play learning tools, early childhood settings and preschools, and parents’ concerns about an uncertain future.
With the right supportive programs and with early interventions, it is now possible to help children from all socioeconomic groups look forward to living fulfilling lives and making positive contributions to our society.
The Problems
Preschools and Kindergartens:
The important research in early childhood education and development is not being widely implemented. While this important research is not totally ignored and can be found in public media, it has unfortunately had little effect on current practices.
Many preschools serving children from 3 to 5 years, in an effort to prepare children for these “academic” kindergartens, have become more “academic” as well, and in so doing, have also reduced play time and independent child activities. These changes work against children’s innate motivation to learn and against their creativity and their opportunity to explore and discover. This, in turn, impacts negatively on children’s independence, thinking abilities, joy in learning, outlets for stress, and healthy development.
Parents:
Problems of implementation of the latest research on early childhood learning are compounded by:
1. The deleterious effects of joblessness and poverty;
2. The concern on the part of many parents of young children regarding the Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEA) that accompany entry into the new “academic” kindergartens. Anxiety about these assessments has them looking to the preschools to help prepare their children academically and behaviorally for kindergarten.
3. Many parents with a misguided faith that technology will make their children smarter, turn towards electronic products in a wide array of formats including electronic educational toys, apps, videos, games, and TV programs which make strong educational claims but many of which work against what is now known to be good practices in early childhood development and learning.
Since there is a lot to say on the subject of positive and effective early childhood learning, we’ve decided to deliver this report section by section.
Part II of “Rethinking Early Childhood Education”
Organic Growth in Early Learning: The Forces of Human Nature
A. Intrinsic Motivation
Research shows that something inside us impels learning and guides it. It is intrinsic, meaning that it is both natural and essential, a part of who we are. There are fundamental forces at play in learning akin to some of the basic forces of nature such as gravity and electromagnetism.
Because the desire to learn is intrinsic, it is powerful.
“Perhaps no single phenomenon reflects the positive potential of human nature as much as ‘intrinsic motivation,’ the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, to explore, and to learn….The children’s ‘inherent motivation’ will help keep them engaged but it’s important for the parent guide to help where necessary to promote engagement….” 1
B. Nature Sets Down a Learning Pattern
We know that nature has provided a pattern for learning, but it is the mother (or primary caregiver) who creates the atmosphere for learning to take place. Although the desire on the part of the mother to create this atmosphere may be instinctive and accompanied by caring and love, as with all things, some mothers do it better than others. Some practices applied by mothers to teaching their children enhance learning while others impair it. More about this later.
C. The Role of Curiosity
Babies are born curious. Curiosity, the desire to know more, plays a very important part in learning since it motivates us to explore, to seek out information and experiences, and to persevere in learning about what made us curious.
A study carried out by cognitive neuroscientists Matthias J. Gruber, et al.2 at the Dynamic Memory Lab at UC Davis Center showed that curiosity enhances not only the learning of interesting information but also the learning of incidental material. How? Imaging results indicated that curiosity activates two areas of the brain, the hippocampus and the mid-brain, which are part of the dopaminergic circuit, also known as the brain’s “wanting system,” and that learning benefits are related to anticipatory brain activity. This helps the brain want more information and it helps people seek that information. These findings are consistent with the idea that curiosity enhances learning, at least in part through increased dopaminergic modulation of hippocampal activity.
“Anticipation is really important,” says Matthias, “because the more curious a subject was, the more their brain engaged.” 3 In other words, the dopaminergic effect came from the anticipation of having their curiosity satisfied, not just from the satisfaction. This pushes the desire to keep looking for answers more than the answers themselves.
In answer to the question of whether, how, and why being curious affects learning, Gruber during a TED presentation 4 reported that when people are curious about the answer to a question, their memories are sharpened so that they recall the information better later on. He added that once curiosity is aroused, unrelated, incidental information in the background is also remembered better. This suggests that curiosity puts the brain in a state that is more conducive to learning any information. In Gruber’s words, “It almost seems like the brain’s wanting system is warming up the hippocampus to get ready for the learning of upcoming information regardless of whether this is information that got you curious in the first place or not.”5
In short, curiosity enhances learning by:
a.) stimulating us via the brain’s increased dopaminergic wanting system to pursue new information; and
b.) helping us to remember the new information.
The implications for education at any level is that teachers who want their students to learn more and to learn better need to stimulate curiosity ahead of learning so that the students want to receive the information and are more inclined to retain the information and perhaps anything else the teacher wants to teach them. Regarding very young children who are born curious and love to explore everything within reach, the important thing is to allow and encourage them to do so by creating an environment conducive to nurturing their curiosity (of course, within the confines of what is safe).
References
1 Zosh, Jennifer M. et al. “Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum.” Front. Psychol., 2 Aug 2018, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01124.
2 Gruber, Mattias J. et al. “States of Curiosity Modulate Hippocampus-Dependent Learning Via the Dopominergic Circuit.” Neuron, 2014, doi.10.1016/j.neuron.2014.08.060.
3 Ibid.
4 Gruber, Mattias J. “This is Your Brain on Curiosity.” TEDx, 20 Nov 2015, youtube.com/watch?v=SmaTPPB-T_S.
5 Ibid.