How Children Learn

This book tries to describe children -- in a few cases, adults -- using their minds well, learning boldly and effectively. Some of the children described are in school; most are not yet old enough. It is before they get to school that children are likely to do their best learning. I believe, and try to show here, that in most situations our minds work best when we use them in a certain way, and that young children tend to learn better than grownups (and better than they themselves will when they are older) because they use their minds in a special way. In short, children have a style of learning that fits their condition, and which they use naturally until we train them out of it. We like to say that we send children to school to teach them to think. What we do, all too often, is to teach them to think badly, to give up a natural and powerful way of thinking in favor of a method that does not work well for them and that we rarely use ourselves. - Foreword.