“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Charles Darwin, 1809.
Charles Darwin’s quote has remained true, across centuries; only the definition and context of ‘change’, has altered. In the 21st century, the speed of innovation and change is so fast that keeping up also requires faster and effective learning. We humans start learning right from the womb and the learning ideally never stops.
So what is ‘Learning’ ?
Learning is the act of gathering new knowledge, data, facts, concepts and skills in our brains. It is a continuous process of building new knowledge on top of existing ones to create a fuller
picture of the world and how it operates.
The more developed our idea of how the world operates, the more we are equipped to leverage those principles to structure our actions, in line with it. It is about understanding the basic principles of how the world or the environment around us operates so that we
can use those principles to create our own ecosystem.
Traditional way of Learning
Most of us think, learning is education received in schools, colleges or universities. Walking into classrooms, maintaining decorum, listening to lectures (which is generally repetition of what’s in the textbook), taking notes on what the teacher thinks is worth preparing for exams, doing homework at home in the evening (which is repetition of what we learnt in the morning) and finally giving exams in the form of multiple choice questions or long format answers is what is learning. And the learning is judged through the scores received in the exams. Learning also sometimes ends with those exams.
What’s wrong with the traditional way of learning?
There is nothing wrong with this way of learning if you have time travelled to the Industrial age where the economy demanded discipline and decorum from a large number of workers, operating in factories, doing almost exactly the same thing over and over again. The industries performed best when workers followed instructions and there was no scope for intellectual or creative contributions.
Now, travel back to today, when we are living in technologically advanced economies where factory settings like learning or working makes us dinosaurs of the Information Age. So while we wait for the education systems across most countries to change, we can take the reins of our own learning in our hands. And in doing so we can help our children imbibe the same traits too, because the only way to prepare for an uncertain future is by learning at the speed of development itself. Since the speed is faster than ever before, we have to learn how to learn effectively i.e. fast yet relevant learning.
So what are we doing about it?
At Curious Little Thinkers (CLT) we are lifelong learners with a mission to keep the natural instinct of learning alive in our children. We are saying ‘alive’ because children are naturally curious hence effective learners. Knowingly or unknowingly as they grow up and get influenced by us, the busy parents, teachers, schools and other adults; they stop asking questions which limits their knowledge and they resort to spoonfed learning in the form of education.
At CLT, we are building an inverse ecosystem of the traditional learning system, where kids are not treated like an assembly line worker, not taught by age but by interest. Where learning is not capped every year or put on hold because the syllabus says so. Where kids can ask too many whys and are asked to communicate,collaborate and curiosity is encouraged. Where kids are not loaded with excessive knowledge with no understanding of how to utilise
or synthesise it. Kids chart their own learning based on curiosity with equally curious kids and adults, who love to learn.
As you continue your journey with us, we will be sharing our thoughts and principles for nurturing lifelong learners in your homes and we are eager to hear your thoughts too. Because we believe in curiosity, communication, collaboration and creativity.