I've had three of my own children and spent my professional life thinking about children. And yet I still find my relation to my children deeply puzzling.
Alison GopnikRead
Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Parents today are increasingly focused on teaching their children from a very young age.
In this quote, Alison Gopnik critiques the tendency of modern parents to engage in pedagogical practices even before their children are born. It highlights a societal shift towards an intensified focus on education and preparation for life, raising questions about the balance between nurturing creativity and imposing learning at an early stage.
Themes
EducationChildrenParentingPedagogyLearning
In practice
Example use cases
In a parenting workshop discussing early childhood education.
More from Alison Gopnik
All quotes →What's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double espressos.
Alison GopnikRead
Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental.
Alison GopnikRead
Similar quotes
In the United States we have concentrated tremendous sums of money on the educational plant, seemingly with the idea that the right number of buildings will turn out the right number of graduates. Yet the teachers who actually instruct the future citizens of our country are more often than not miserably paid. If in the future we find ourselves with a lot of fourth-rate citizens, we have only ourselves to blame.
Louis L'AmourRead
No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets.
Stanislaw LemRead
I always tell people there's only one trick to writing: You have to write something that people are willing to pay money to read. It doesn't have to be very good, necessarily, but somebody, somewhere, has got to be willing to pay money for it.
Bill BrysonRead
You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.
Booker T. WashingtonRead
Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.
P. D. JamesRead
Trust your daughters, they are faithful. Honor your daughters, they are honorable. Educate your daughters, they are amazing.
Ziauddin YousafzaiRead