In the 1993 *Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas*, by Seymour Papert, he says that there are two factors which determine the rate of learning:
- *Cultural references* - *Affect (love) for the topic* Where cultural references is the number of relatable, already familiar, concepts. For example, Eskimos have more than 300 words for types of snow, so new things which can be usefully associated with these concepts of snow may be learned more quickly by Eskimos. And affect, or love, is the desire of the student to learn it. As of the writing of the book in 1993, there was little data to go along with this notion, so Papert speculated for a moment, reflecting on its origin's in Piaget's work. Intuitively I know this to be true in the sense that all subjects are interesting and compelling with the right guide (teacher). Good luck! =) Cheers, Joe Gorse P.S. Disclaimer: it has been a while since I read the book, so for those of you who remember it more clearly forgive my simplistic recollection. On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Casey Ransberger <casey.obrie...@gmail.com> wrote: > Sorry if this is a little off topic. > > I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd > like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology > might be a lot to think about at 4. > > I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed > that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus > points (as always) if you can point me at some research. > > Anyway is 4 too soon? > > --Casey Ransberger > > _______________________________________________ > Fonc mailing list > Fonc@mailman.vpri.org > http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org > > -- Joe Gorse C: 440-552-0730 LI: Joe Gorse <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joe-gorse/7/12/397>
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