Children are Not "Blank Slates"

You often hear young children spoken of as "blank slates." As parents and educators, as adults who are presumably "full slates," our job is then to get to writing -- or even, to somehow encourage them to write -- in order to correct their proverbial blankness.

But no one is ever a blank slate. Life is an immersive experience. Our minds are never blank, nor are they ever full, from the moment we're born (and likely before) until the day we die (and perhaps afterwards).

Certainly, a two-year-old perceives the world differently than a sixty-two-year-old, but that difference, as implied by metaphors like "blank slate" or "empty vessel," is not ignorance. 

Is the seed ignorant? Of course not. Seeds have the "wisdom" (for want of a better word) to "decide" when to germinate. You may quibble with my choice of words (wisdom, decide), but researchers have found what they call a "decision-making center" in dormant seeds that is capable of communicating and integrating information about temperature, moisture, sunlight, and their own hormones in order to make a decision about when and whether to germinate. Insect eggs, larvae, and pupae, likewise, show wisdom. Human development is no different. Being a two-year-old is essential to becoming an adult, just as being a seed or being an egg is essential to becoming a plant or an insect.

I recently came across a video of an educator testing a three-year-old on school-ish things like letter, number, and color recognition. The kid seemed to be enjoying himself, although we all know that there were others who found it tedious or even painful, they just didn't make the cut because, to a school-ish adult, those children are "behind" or "uncooperative" or "unmotivated." 

What if, however, we understood these children to be like seeds? Does anyone think that testing the seed helps it grow? And even the most accomplished gardener can't convince a seed to sprout leaves, flower, or fruit before their time. Oh sure, there are hothouses and other artificial growing environments, but we all know that plants raised this way either must spend their lives in the hothouse or perish. And isn't that exactly what our standard schools are: hothouses in which we vainly hope to one-up Mother Nature?

A good gardener, like a good parent or educator, knows that their job is to prepare the conditions for growth, to protect them as they grow, but it's the seed's job to do the growing, not according to our designs, but nature's. Seeds, like our children if we would just allow them to "decide" for themselves, already know what to do.

"Perhaps the mind is not merely a blank slate upon which anything may be written," writes naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch in his book The Voice of the Desert. "Perhaps it reaches out spontaneously toward what can nourish either intelligence or imagination. Perhaps it is part of nature and, without being taught, shares nature's intentions."

******

I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 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.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!