The Importance of Childhood
At a recent talk at the National Museum of Mathematics sponsored by the Lab for the Developing Minds at NYU, Alison Gopnik, a professor of Psychology and researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, presented on “How Young Children Understand Probability and Statistics: Sometimes Even Better than Adults!” I’ve followed Dr. Gopnik’s research for years. She’s a pioneer in developmental research, focusing on how children make sense of their everyday experiences and how to understand infant and toddler cognition. Her talk began by presenting current research around how young children use “intuitive theories” of the things and people around them. About halfway through her talk, she began to speak about larger, more complex and overarching themes of childhood, exploration, and what it means to be a young person in society. While her work can have pockets of niche topics, her overarching philosophy of childhood reminds us that this moment in a person’s life is so special, intricate, and enriching, and we have so much we can offer to help young children reach their full potential.
The Length of Childhood
Dr. Gopnik dives into what evolutionary biologists call “Life History” which is the ways in which scientists have been able to predict what adults within a species will be like due to many measurable factors such as length of childhood, parent involvement in childhood, life span, how many babies it can have at a time, etc. This also translates into the correlation that we see between the length of childhood and intelligence, relative brain size, and cognitive flexibility. With humans, of course, scoring the highest amongst these. So why do humans have such a long period of childhood where adults are tasked with so many years of having dependent little ones that require so much time, attention and resources?
Well, it leads to the Exploration vs. Exploitation Model that comes up in computer science and AI but is also related to the length of childhood. Dr. Gopnik explains the model which describes two different methods of finding solutions to problems- on one hand, you have the ability to limit your solution search to a small amount of possibilities which can get you a quick and easy solution but that could also mean you’re missing out on more innovative or better solutions that are harder to get to, or on the other hand, you can go for a longer, more detailed and meticulous search for solutions that will take time and energy but that will likely give you an abundance of options and more effective solutions. Children tend to innately do the latter when left to on their own to explore and investigate. If you give a child a toy with no instructions, they can find a plethora of ways to use it, manipulate it, play with it and discover it’s potential over time. If you give that same child the same toy along with a single purpose or use, they’ll likely not explore it as deeply since they already have preconceived notions about it’s purpose and use. As children get older and make more connections and learn how things work in the world, they begin to trade-off between these two ways of approaching problems or situations.
Therefore, Dr. Gopnik hypothesizes that childhood is evolution’s way of resolving the explore/exploit trade-offs. A long period of being able to focus on exploring and being taken care of results in a better ability to “exploit” and narrow down the search in adulthood after being given the time to explore in childhood. This is why allowing for children to have those open-ended and exploratory experiences early in their lives and continuing to foster exploration and critical thinking is so key to developing creative and divergent thinkers.
The Carpenter and The Gardener
Humans are also wonderfully unique in that we have such a large spread of people that become invested in the process of caring for children. We’re one of the few species that calls in such a vast group to help raise our young, from parents, aunts and uncles to grandparents, from babysitters and nannies to teachers, coaches and family friends, there are so many adults that factor into childhood.
Towards the end, when Dr. Gopnik goes into the difference between teaching and caring or caregiving. We don’t often think about the act of caring or give it much thought but it’s quite a nuanced and specific gesture. While teaching is immensely important, it puts a general goal or end objective at the forefront, which is separate from the individual, while caring, that’s the act of putting someone else’s goal as your priority to help them attain it. As adults, we have so much knowledge, so many skills, and to put our skills to use to help children attain their goals is what caring is all about. While it’s not often said, so much of the work done in early childhood is giving care and showing children the meaning of care so they can do that for themselves and others as they grow.
Dr. Gopnik speaks to this in her book, The Carpenter and The Gardner, comparing different caregiving mindsets. While both a carpenter and a gardener have to prepare a product and work effortlessly to ensure that product is of high quality, they do it profoundly differently. Carpenters focus on shaping, molding, and carving out their products with special tools, a prescriptive way of working, and with specialized materials; meanwhile, gardeners use their knowledge and skills to focus on developing an environment that will allow for all of their products to flourish, taking into account the differences in plants, their different needs and varying capacities. While the carpenter needs to take full control of their materials and tools to successfully complete and master their product, the gardener rather focuses on creating an enriching environment where their crops and plants can grow. It can be tempting at times to want to control and fully guide children’s development, especially at such a young age, but the truth about childhood is that it’s meant to be open, exploratory, and supportive to be able to cultivate to skills for successful, peaceful, and happy adults in the future.
While there’s so many things that we want children to become and strive towards, the most beneficial way is to create caring and enriching environments in which their full capacity can flourish by uplifting their strengths and supporting their areas of growth. Dr. Gopnik left us with these thoughts to end her presentation and it left me reflecting on our students and how lucky each and everyone of our wBees are to have such wonderful and loving families, all the amazing caregivers we see at drop-off and pick-up each day, and our incredible staff of teachers who have so much love and care for each one of their students. Our community is truly a sight to behold and we’re thankful for each one of you for being part of it! Hooray for childhood!
If you’re interested in hearing the whole talk, you can find the recording here.
Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!
Link for her talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seqJWQUBQwk
Link for her book “The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind”: https://www.amazon.com/Scientist-Crib-Early-Learning-Tells/dp/0688177883/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W9LKLE134YYT&keywords=scientist+in+the+crib&qid=1678301923&sprefix=scientist+in+the%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1
Link for her book “The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children” : https://www.amazon.com/Gardener-Carpenter-Development-Relationship-Children/dp/1250132258/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQiAgaGgBhC8ARIsAAAyLfFfGBNWSTsovdPhtsYLI6U1AX24jq5UwI88A1rXmnzQbnqcLwU65h8aAlneEALw_wcB&hvadid=241649437121&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9004402&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=5421401170441304704&hvtargid=kwd-299428489350&hydadcr=22591_10356102&keywords=the+carpenter+and+the+gardener&qid=1678301901&sr=8-1
