Originally published on PsychologyToday.com at my blog, “Freedom to Learn“. In many previous posts I have contended that children come into the world biologically designed to educate themselves. The evidence comes from observing the amazing learning capacities of children before they start school (here), the ways that children and adolescents in…
Category: Anthropology
The Wisdom of Hunter-Gatherers
Originally published on PsychologyToday.com at my blog, “Freedom to Learn“. For hundreds of thousands of years, up until the time when agriculture was invented (a mere 10,000 years ago), we were all hunter-gatherers. Our human instincts, including all of the instinctive means by which we learn, came about in the…
Why Young Children Protest Bedtime: Evolutionary Mismatch
Originally published on PsychologyToday.com at my blog, “Freedom to Learn“. Infants and young children in our culture regularly protest going to bed. They make all sorts of excuses. They say they are not tired, when in fact they obviously are tired. They say they are hungry, or thirsty, or need…