Children Have a Rage to Learn
What is a three-year-old really like as opposed to the way we adults believe him to be?
Babies are born with a rage to learn. They want to learn about everything and they want to learn about it right now.
Tiny kids think that learning is the greatest ting that ever happened. The world spends the first six years of life trying to tell them that learning isn’t the greatest thing in life and that playing is.
Some kids never learn that playing is the greatest thing in life and as a result those kids go all the way through life believing that learning is the greatest thing in life. Those are the ones we call geniuses.
If you want to know what three-year-olds really think, instead of the nonsense we tell each other they think, why don’t you consult a real authority on three-year-olds? Why don’t you ask a three-year-old? When you ask him be willing to listen to him through clear ears and to look at him through clear eyes. If you know what he’s going to say before he says it you will hear him say what you thought he was going to say and see him do what you thought he was going to do.
Remember the power of myths.
Ask a three-year-old, what he really wants. If he trusts you, you won’t get a chance to ask him; he’ll ask you. He won’t ask you how three-years-olds are – he knows all about that. He will ask you endless questions, as everyone knows, thus providing that three-year-olds don’t want to play patty-cake – they wan to learn.
(The great advantage of to being unreasonable, as all myth-makers are, is that you can hold two opposing views simultaneously. Ergo – everybody knows that little kids want to play and everybody knows that little kids ask questions endlessly).
The truth is that little kids don’t want to play and that they do ask an unending series of questions – and what superb questions they are.
“Daddy, what holds the stars up in the sky?” “Mommy, why is the grass green?” “ Daddy, how does the little man get into the television set?”
Those are brilliant questions – precisely the same questions that top-flight scientists ask.