Clearing the Deck for that Next First Step

A baby's first step is a moment that thrills us. We seen them, their entire body focused on this previously impossible task. That it's something they will spend their rest of their life doing without thought or special effort, isn't relevant. This is the moment we video tape if we can, but the truth is that young children spend their days routinely engaged in similar firsts: grasping an object, drinking from a cup, clapping. These are all things that we, as adults, do on automatic pilot, so to speak, but for a young child, they are things they are in the process of learning so it takes a coordinated and concentrated effort by both mind and body to make them happen.

As adults, most of our movements and actions throughout the day are accomplished with minimal conscious thought. When we were learning to drive, for instance, we at first had to think about every single thing we did. Our brain sends a signal to our foot to press the brake pedal, then the tiniest fraction of a second later our foot makes that idea come true, simultaneously sending the signal that it has done so back to the brain, which in turn confirms that yes, this is what I was hoping for. Turning the key, releasing the emergency brake, putting the car in gear, depressing the accelerator, gently at first, then with a little more oomph, all of it was once something that required our full attention. Now it's all handled in the background by our brain and body, freeing our conscious mind to do other things, like worrying about that upcoming meeting or re-litigating the argument we just had with our spouse.

Soon that baby will be running on autopilot while clapping as their conscious mind can concentrate on their part in the game at hand. This is what we have evolved to do: relegate as much habitual movement as possible to the background in order to free our attention for more pressing matters. Meditation and mindfulness practices seek to temporarily override this phenomenon, to refocus us on our routine movements, but it can't last for long because we've evolved for automating what we can and focusing on what we can't.

Our brains are often referred to as "prediction machines," and it makes sense. After all, there is a tiny lag time (something like 100 milliseconds) between the moment we see, say, a tiger about to pounce and our brain receiving that information. This means that we are always living ever so slightly in the past. Some believe that our conscious minds have evolved, at least in part, for the purpose of trying to correct for this by forever predicting the future, giving us a better chance of escaping that tiger.

Of course, most of the time, we aren't faced with tigers, but rather less pressing things like taking our first step. As neuroscientist Karl Friston puts it, "Actions are making your predictions come true . . . The way that we move -- the intention to move, the willed actions that we enjoy -- are actually prior fantasies that I am going to do this. The body -- the reflexes, the muscles -- realizes those fantasies" As science journalist George Musser puts it in his new brain-bending book Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: "According to Friston's way of thinking, which he calls active inference, the brain is not the body's helmsman or puppeteer, but its dreamer. Brain and body are bound up in a mutual project to predict the world successfully."

No wonder our brain-bodies are so eager to automate as much as possible. Indeed, we are even more marvelous than that. If our brains make predictions that prove correct, our sensory inputs  typically don't rise to the level of conscious awareness. Even when the prediction proves wrong, if it's an easy error to correct, our conscious mind doesn't get involved. Only when our predictions are way off and challenging to fix does our conscious mind get fully involved. In other words, as Musser puts it, "In short, we are only aware of thwarted expectations. And there is a lot thwarting. Nothing in the real world is ideal, nothing ever goes according to plan, so the brain is always erring and calibrating. If not for these continual imperfections, we'd have no need to be conscious."

And this isn't even the most brain-bending concept in Musser's book.

This has direct application for those of us who work with young children. For one thing, it means that we are, at best, wasting our time when we try to "teach" children anything if they haven't already shifted the prerequisite movements into autopilot. If a child is still using their conscious mind to manipulate a pencil, for instance, there is no way they can be taught to write letters. If a child must still make a conscious effort to sit still or be quiet, there's no way we can expect them to learn much of anything else while sitting still and being quiet. 

But more to the point, we are designed to learn by attempting to make our dreams reality through embodiment. This is why we must be free to move. Research indicates that all of us think more clearly and creatively while in motion. Our brains need the give-and-take with our bodies, and specifically our senses, in order to do much of anything.

This, at least in part, helps explain why play is a better teacher than any kind of adult-directed instruction. Direct instruction requires educators to attempt to somehow wrangle children's attention toward pre-determined "learning objectives." That so many teachers attempt to do this while simultaneously insisting on stillness and silence, is irrational given what we know about learning. It's like trying to push water up a hill, which is why punishments and rewards are so often the real focus of much of what we call schooling. When you essentially disable self-motivation, that's what you're left with.

Play, or self-directed learning, frees our conscious mind to choose what it is ready, right now, to focus on, what it needs to focus on, what it is self-motivated to focus on. It frees children to do what they are best at, dream and move, be thwarted and try again until that combination of thought and movement has been mastered, clearing the deck for that next first step.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 15 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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