To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves

“To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves….and most of us were taught as children that we cannot be trusted”

Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future; it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.

Of course a child may not know what he may need to know in ten years (who does?) But he knows, and much better than anyone else, what he wants and needs to know right now, what his mind is ready and hungry for. If we help him, or just allow him, to learn that, he will remember it, use it, build on it. 

If we try to make him learn something else, that we think is more important, the chances are that he won’t learn it, or will learn very little of it, that he will soon forget most of what he learned, and what is worst of all, will before long lose most of his appetite for learning anything.

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