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Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

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Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#111

Post by knaq »

seg_lol wrote: post #58
tmaly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 7 year old in school now. The homework is pretty generic. There is not much in the way of domain-specific knowledge. We do some activities at home. Chemistry, electronics, scratch programming. Stuff that is not taught in schools. I use to live in radio shack as a kid. Putting together circuits was thrilling.

I am in no way saying you are doing this, comment is for the thread as well as you. As others have mentioned in this discussion, I think giving the child both a sense and actual control over what they work on is one of the keys. Children want to please their parents, so they might work on things that they think you would like. They are extremely good at reading people even if other actions seem uncoordinated. It is b…

I take issue with the idea that "Children want to please their parents".

Especially around age 13 or 14, pissing off parents is a sport.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#112

Post by lubujackson »

A lot of people have mentioned answering questions. We like to answer what we can and aren't afraid to say "I don't know, let's look it up." Then we read Wikipedia or watch a YouTube or talk about it.

So the first thing is not to squash their curiosity. The second is to train them how to find answers. Right now, we find the answers with our 6 year old but soon he will be able to do it himself.

Something people haven't really mentioned, and is hard to do as a parent, is to get out of the way. Give them a problem or a tool and let them get bored. Boredom is the scarcest resource we have nowadays and it is critical to let kids be bored so their natural curiosity can take over and lead them to do things that they want to do, not what they are told.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#113

Post by clairity »

jaequery wrote: post #42
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #15

I had the pleasure to spend a few years with an incredibly creative family, in all domains (family unit consisted of nobel prize winner, renowned academics, award winning authors, artists), and the one thing which always stood out to me was how they had such a deep culture of rewarding curiosity, thinking, and exploration. I have no idea how conscious it was on the family's part, but it seemed like everyone in that f…

If the kids were indeed happy and were go-getters, then it appears the parents have raised their kids to take control of what they want to do instead of the other way around. I just started reading a book that talked about that, called "The self-driven child", and the main message of what the book is trying to say is, give your kids "control". Instead of telling them to do this or that, provide them choices and let t…

i did this (gave control) with my rescued dog, who was 3 when i got her 2 years ago, and exhibited a variety of induced fears and anxieties which initially meant that she was constantly looking to me for permission, assurance, and validation, because her previous pack leader(s) were apparently capricious and menacing.

out in the world, she's a relative independent creature free to explore and make decisions (it's my job to be patient and supportive, but not overly so). of course i steer her away from sitatuions that are certain to overwhelm her, exposing her to them a little at a time so she eventually learns to handle them herself without otherwise damaging regression to her self-assurance. exposure to small risks, and overcoming them, allows her to build that confidence herself, with minimal intervention on my part.

she's had a few (minor) mishaps, but she's also grown quite a bit in her self-confidence and trust (especially at home, where the relative confinement manifested in near constant anxiety behaviors before). she's learned how to approach other dogs, and the social etiquette therein, able to disengage with (usually fearful) aggressors on her own without my intervention. she's learning that not every large human is a danger to her, but that cars (and roads) are. she knows squirrels and pigeons are fun to chase, but not cats (she lives with a feline sister who's friendly and kind, but still has claws).

it's how animals develop self-sufficiency in the wild, including us if we weren't so obscured by domestication.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#114

Post by mncharity »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #34
glitchc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that's lovely. How does one work around the stresses of daily life to replicate that?

Certainly beats me, but I think it helped that for both parents this WAS really their source of income (teaching and writing), and that they had gotten to the point that doing this stuff was also their way to cope with the stress of daily life. Like, with cooking, everyone was involved, or when they'd watch a movie, it was a family affair with a healthy amount of commentary or analysis. It's hard to explain, but its…

I'm interested in exploring how education might be made unrecognizably better. So I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on how to scale this.

With some things, we can see what's needed, even if we're not set up to attempt it. Education content could be transformatively less wretched, even with current tech. Critical concepts and misconceptions could be punchlisted. Support networks could be thicker, deeper, and non-local. To avoid so many falling though such large cracks.

But embedding in an excellent culture like this? There's some work from MOOCs. But especially for young kids, something more immersive is needed. We could be waiting years for child-compatible AR. And for humans-plus-AI-NPCs local-plus-remote collaborative learning communities. Is there anything beyond "well, there's the daily triage struggle towards slightly less toxic cultures, but really, unless you have an extraordinarily outlier family, you're just bleep-out-of-luck until mid-century"?

Which isn't intended to disparage everyone's day-by-day efforts. But if something like this family's environment is to become norm rather than outlier... we also have to be thinking and aiming bigger.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#115

Post by seg_lol »

knaq wrote: post #111
seg_lol wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in no way saying you are doing this, comment is for the thread as well as you. As others have mentioned in this discussion, I think giving the child both a sense and actual control over what they work on is one of the keys. Children want to please their parents, so they might work on things that they think you would like. They are extremely good at reading people even if other actions seem uncoordinated. It is b…

I take issue with the idea that "Children want to please their parents". Especially around age 13 or 14, pissing off parents is a sport.

Yeah you only get 6 or 7 years before the relationship changes. Seemingly large for the child but a fleeting blip for the parents.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#116

Post by stakkur »

Learning 'how to think' isn't exactly a goal for 6-8-year-olds. At this age, the focus should be on integration--learning to get the mind and body (and will or spirit) working together, being in the world. 'Thinking' isn't really the focus. Ages 6-8 also involve two separate developmental periods: a six-year-old is in a much different place than an 8-year-old.

I like how Waldorf approaches this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education#Developmenta...

Notice that 'thinking' isn't really a focus with Waldorf until around age 14.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#117

Post by natmaka »

tboyd47 wrote: post #46
natmaka wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Santa Claus may be 'intellectually' useful starting from the instant the kid learns that is is a myth, because this may teach him that seeing everybody apparently believe in something doesn't preclude that, in fact, nearly nobody does. This may be of paramount importance when it comes to forming a critical mind. Moreover any human group is built upon myths.

Critical thinking is a lot harder than just saying, "Don't believe other people." You have to teach that people may be trustworthy in one area, but not in another. You have to teach when you can take a statement on face value. You have to teach how to be skeptical of your own judgments and defer to others sometimes. You may also teach them how to spot liars. These things require time to understand and I don't see tha…

> Critical thinking is a lot harder than just saying, "Don't believe other people."

Indeed, and I didn't write that the Santa Claus myth is sufficient on this behalf, but that it may help.

Are you rejecting anything but a perfect (simple and exhaustive) way to teach critical thinking? I never crossed one, and doubt it exists for any complex philosophical asset. Refusing any other way exposes to the 'perfect solution fallacy'.

> if you sabotage the process by openly betraying them in a huge way early on.

I doubt kids learning that Santa Claus is a myth feel betrayed, and never perceived it (I was born in 1967 and have a daughter).

The SC myth is well-built because when discovering its nature a kid understands that the lie is innocuous and even pleasant (gifts, gatherings...), and therefore not really a 'betraying'. He can then proceed to other conclusions about intents, the way he forms his own beliefs...

I'm not fond of the SC myth nor do I practice it, however I try to be objective (this is part of critical thinking!).

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#118

Post by tmaly »

omarhaneef wrote: post #95
tmaly wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here, The Thinking Toolbox by Bluedorn is pretty good. The target age starts at 12-13. For me, this is still too advanced for the age range 6-8 I am looking for. The biggest challenge is taking these abstract ideas and making them accessible and interesting to a child. I taught a few lessons in Scratch programming last year to grades 1-5. Before I conceptualized the lessons, I had listened to the audio book Made t…

I didn’t understand that you specifically meant how to think about programming. That is a more specific — and therefore more answerable — question. I thought you meant thinking in general from the post.

I offered Scratch as a specific example, but I think the ideas can be applied in the general.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#119

Post by ravi-delia »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #32
tboyd47 wrote: post #2

Show them by example how to be skeptical without accusing people of lying, and mention often the many reasons why people say things that might not be completely true. Also, you need to make sure you yourself don't lie to them. A lot of parents still teach their kids to believe in Santa Claus. I know this is one of those cultural sacred cows, but I strongly think this should not be done. Kids need to be able to trust…

My wife and I agreed to be rigorously honest with our daughter. When "Santa" came up I was initially very uncomfortable with the lie. After discussing it with my wife we opted to go on with the lie under the conditions that it not be used for any kind of negative reinforcement-- none of the "Santa is watching you..." kind of stuff-- and that the "reveal" needed to be handled appropriately. When she does deduce the li…

It's funny, my parents did exactly the same thing and while I enjoyed playing along I can't recall ever believing a word of it. I'm not sure how my gut so quickly got to the truth. Maybe people deep down follow Occam's razor, though more likely I just got it by osmosis.

To tell you the truth, I think back to that when I question my gut to this day. I'm thankful my parents never lied to me outside of it, but the wonderful thing about Santa is that everyone is in on the conspiracy, so if you can see past it you'll only ever be more confident in the truth when you find it, without taking it for granted. If it means anything from a random person on hacker news, I benefited from being told that Santa existed, and from the sound of it your daughter will too.

Re: Ask HN: Teaching kids how to think?

#120

Post by kirillzubovsky »

We try to encourage our kids to think/wonder at every opportunity.

When they ask a question, instead of giving them an answer, we just ask what they think first. Often that leads to a rather wild/creative prediction, something that comes out of their understanding of thew world, which although limited, is beautiful. We explore forward from there.

Generally, it helps to put kids in charge of their own life in whichever capacity they can at this point in time. If they know they can put on their own shoes, clean their own dishes, make their own breakfast ...etc, they also learn implicitly that they have full ownership of their thinking too.

To be honest, it's hard because very often it's easier for us, the parents, to just have the kids do what we need them to do, rather than what kids want to do, or think is the best way to do it. But, it's a tradeoff. When they get more freedom, they engulf in it.

My 2c.

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