6 ms·

Are kids helpful and, if so why?

19 points by barry-cotter 8y ago

barry-cotter 8y ago
If you want to learn more about this David F. Lancy's book, The Anthropology of Childhood, is excellent. Very short version Children everywhere desperately want to be helpful, to be productive members of society with a useful role. They learn what to do and how to do it with very, very little in the way of explicit instruction and for almost all skills in almost all societies none. Schools and formal instruction are a product of literate societies and schooling, both teaching and learning are unnatural behaviours that absolutely have to be taught. https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chattel-Changelings/dp/1107420989 https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chatte...
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  > They learn what to do and how to do it with very, very little in the way of explicit instruction [..] > [..] both teaching and learning are unnatural behaviour that absolutely have to be taught. Something isn't right.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Teaching and learning in a classroom environment. Lessons. Children and people more generally learn by observation, making attempts at relatively simple tasks and increasing the range of tasks they’re competent at and can do well. Learning how to do things in practice with bugger all theory.
    - johnchristopher 8y ago
      > Teaching and learning in a classroom environment. Lessons. My bad.
dash2 8y ago
There are some very cute videos of some of the "kids helping" research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-eU5xZW7cU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-eU5xZW7cU
watwut 8y ago
14-30month old want to help, but are not useful. You doing it alone goes much faster then you doing it with kid. Also, they loose attention quick and change activity. 3 years old wI'll pick apples and will loose attention in 10 minutes or sooner. So you can't really use them. They also loose natural interest in activity (cleaning) pretty much when they learned it enough to be useful. It is interesting as long as it is challenge I guess. Kids learn simple activities this way, but they won't learn complicated ones. That is why all larger civilizations had tutors or schools for those expected to do non-simple work (read not poor).
- mellow-lake-day 8y ago
  Just want to point out that it's lose and not loose. http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/loose-vs-lose/ http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/l...
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Indeed, that’s why no one ever learned how to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint or make pottery before the rise of literate civilisations. The first appearance of anything resembling schools in the historical record are for scribes in Mesopotamia, about 5,000 years ago. Many very complicated things have been and continue to be taught through the apprenticeship model, otherwise known as be useful to me or get out. It doesn’t make sense to take an apprentice unless you’re going to get some advantage from it so the learning generally proceeded slower than it could have if instruction was the sole aim. Activities as complicated as architecture, engineering sufficient to build cathedrals and aqueducts and painting and sculpture sufficient for the renaissance were taught in this manner.
  - watwut 8y ago
    They did not learned to to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint at the age of three nor sooner. They learned that at later age, when they could be actually useful. The article is about small kids. My comment is about small kids too. Also, parents or elders would explicitely teach you, even if you was aprentice of something more complicated explicitely teaching was there. It was not based merely on observasion and wish to be useful alone. Moreover, it make sense to take apprentice that is not useful - when his parents pay you.
teddyh 8y ago
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal covered this: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-fundamental-equation https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-fundamental-equation
- wodenokoto 8y ago
  I don't get the punchline about the y-axis starting at negative 10 billion
  - Doxin 8y ago
    the joke there is that the utility of children is a) constant over their lifespan and b) negative 10 billion to start with.

19 points by barry-cotter 8y ago

If you want to learn more about this David F. Lancy's book, The Anthropology of Childhood, is excellent. Very short version Children everywhere desperately want to be helpful, to be productive members of society with a useful role. They learn what to do and how to do it with very, very little in the way of explicit instruction and for almost all skills in almost all societies none. Schools and formal instruction are a product of literate societies and schooling, both teaching and learning are unnatural behaviours that absolutely have to be taught. https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chattel-Changelings/dp/1107420989 https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chatte...

johnchristopher 8y ago
> They learn what to do and how to do it with very, very little in the way of explicit instruction [..] > [..] both teaching and learning are unnatural behaviour that absolutely have to be taught. Something isn't right.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Teaching and learning in a classroom environment. Lessons. Children and people more generally learn by observation, making attempts at relatively simple tasks and increasing the range of tasks they’re competent at and can do well. Learning how to do things in practice with bugger all theory.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    > Teaching and learning in a classroom environment. Lessons. My bad.

dash2 8y ago

There are some very cute videos of some of the "kids helping" research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-eU5xZW7cU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-eU5xZW7cU

watwut 8y ago

14-30month old want to help, but are not useful. You doing it alone goes much faster then you doing it with kid. Also, they loose attention quick and change activity. 3 years old wI'll pick apples and will loose attention in 10 minutes or sooner. So you can't really use them. They also loose natural interest in activity (cleaning) pretty much when they learned it enough to be useful. It is interesting as long as it is challenge I guess. Kids learn simple activities this way, but they won't learn complicated ones. That is why all larger civilizations had tutors or schools for those expected to do non-simple work (read not poor).

mellow-lake-day 8y ago
Just want to point out that it's lose and not loose. http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/loose-vs-lose/ http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/l...
barry-cotter 8y ago
Indeed, that’s why no one ever learned how to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint or make pottery before the rise of literate civilisations. The first appearance of anything resembling schools in the historical record are for scribes in Mesopotamia, about 5,000 years ago. Many very complicated things have been and continue to be taught through the apprenticeship model, otherwise known as be useful to me or get out. It doesn’t make sense to take an apprentice unless you’re going to get some advantage from it so the learning generally proceeded slower than it could have if instruction was the sole aim. Activities as complicated as architecture, engineering sufficient to build cathedrals and aqueducts and painting and sculpture sufficient for the renaissance were taught in this manner.
- watwut 8y ago
  They did not learned to to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint at the age of three nor sooner. They learned that at later age, when they could be actually useful. The article is about small kids. My comment is about small kids too. Also, parents or elders would explicitely teach you, even if you was aprentice of something more complicated explicitely teaching was there. It was not based merely on observasion and wish to be useful alone. Moreover, it make sense to take apprentice that is not useful - when his parents pay you.

teddyh 8y ago

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal covered this: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-fundamental-equation https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-fundamental-equation

wodenokoto 8y ago
I don't get the punchline about the y-axis starting at negative 10 billion
- Doxin 8y ago
  the joke there is that the utility of children is a) constant over their lifespan and b) negative 10 billion to start with.