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Teaching is natural in at least some other animals as well as in humans. Almost all such cases of teaching involve relatively simple ways by which the teacher helps the learner practice some skill or acquire some information that the learner is highly motivated to practice or acquire. Teaching, then, is altruistic; it serves the learner at some cost to the teacher.. Read More
What about eagles learning to
What about eagles learning to fly? I read that the parents entice reluctant fledglings out of the nest with food. From this, should we take away that some children will at some point need motivation if they take no initiative on their own?
Learning to fly
Hi Stephen,
I haven't heard this story, but have heard the story--usually as a religious parable--that eagle parents will push a fledgling out of the nest to encourage flying. I have never read or heard of any scientific evidence for it, nor for the version you described. I just now did a very quick literature search and couldn't find any discussion of it in the animal behavior literature. But it was a very quick search and I may have missed something. I did find some discussion about how eaglets learn to fly by hopping from branch to branch and increasing the distance by flapping their wings; but no mention of parents enticing them.
I have come across evidence that monkey mothers (I don't recall which species) will sometimes encourage their very young infants to practice walking earlier than they otherwise would by repeatedly moving a short distance from them and beckoning them to her. This might be considered to be an example of teaching by inducing motivation.
-Peter
chickens
Hi, I am wondering what is the "distinctive feeding display" performed by chickens? I am wondering if I can use this same technique to attract my children to vegetables. Seriously.
food display
Hi, Submamma,
According to J. A. Clarke, who studied it, the food display of the white-tailed ptarmigan hen is "a distinctive guttural clucking" combined with head-bobbing right over the food. The hen may also repeatedly pick the food up and drop it while doing this. So, try this with some bits of broccoli on the floor. I'm sure your kids will love it. -Peter
As someone who's always had a
As someone who's always had a bent towards the natural sciences, I have often looked to those subjects for answers when it came to the common contentious issues around raising children. For example, where will my baby sleep? What will my baby eat (i.e. breastfeeding vs artificial milk)? How to respond to baby when he cries? When I look to Nature, specifically the way other mammalian females figure things out, and the evolutionary context in which humans evolved, I always find answers that make the most sense and prove most useful.
Your article on learning today supports my own ideas about "Natural Learning", that is, learning the way that children are designed by Nature to learn (because I've always thought it must be obvious from watching other mammalian young that our own need little external motivation to either learn or to become independent). But I've not been able to put it into words as you have, and have not had time to research the literature for specific examples. Thank you so much for a wonderful resource!
Punishment
Hey! I've used punishment (stern words and looks) to teach my homeschooled kids I mean it when I say "stay away from me right now!" Especially when they come knocking at the bathroom door. Now I don't feel so bad. ;-)
What about difficult things?
It's difficult to make a case against this more naturalistic approach to teaching and learning, but what about those things we
think young people should learn, but for which they do not yet see a purpose? Calculus or Shakespeare, for example.
Do we see a purpose?
Hi Sydney, thanks for the question. My contention is that children will learn what they need to know when the do see a purpose, or when they find it enjoyable, and that there is no need for them to learn things for which they don't see a purpose. In fact, for most people, there is no purpose at all in learning calculus (how much calculus do most people remember, and how many actually use it?), and why on earth should anyone read Shakespeare except to enjoy it? I think Shakespeare himself would be appalled at the idea of forcing people to read his plays and sonnets. For more on the self-directed learning of math, see my post on that topic, at, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201004/kids-learn-math... . -Best, Peter
Just saw this new article
Just saw this new article about learning in hunter-gatherer children:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21357239
Hewlett's article
Matt, thanks for pointing this out. Actually, I read the article when it first appeared and have communicated with Berry Hewlett about it. I'll be making some use of it in my next post, which is about teaching in hunter-gatherer cultures. -Peter
Finally, back to positive articles
If a person shows another how to do something correctly, or learns the right way of teaching a person, or reviews the ways people of the past taught, for me, those are positive articles I can learn from.
But the past two articles have been about negative non-teaching, and they have interested me little.
One does not learn by learning how not-to-learn.
killerwhales too, teach
- and perhaps they're even conscious about it; in fact they form packs (is that the word for it?) with very distinct cultures. I learned that from a BBC documentary I watched years ago. Teaching is, interestingly
performed mostly by older females, past menopause. Great blog of yours!
non-human grandmothers
I would like to add something to my previous comment where I draw attention to killerwhales, a species that doesn't seem to figure among those being dealt with in your sources (I didn't verify this though).
Anyway I find it odd that you don't mention them, since it has become mainstream knowledge that these highly intelligent animals share many of our characteristics: culture, language, sense of humour and playfulness just to name a few. The fact that these animals, for the female half, go through menopause (which permits them to live longer) combined with their aptitude for language, apparently enables them to reach a very high level of cultural transmission. Don't you think that this is relevant to your discussion of the altruistic qualities of teaching? Even from the point of view of "selfish genes" I find it fascinating to encounter this level of dedication to teaching outside our own species.
Teaching among killer whales?
Hi Ela,
Thanks for this comment. I have not come across any evidence of teaching among whales of any species. We know that whales are big-brained mammals, and they communicate with one another, but do they "teach" by the definition that I supplied in this post. I would be interested in an example of such teaching, if you know of one. I also wonder about dolphins.
-Peter
culturally acquired skills
Hi Peter
and thanks for answering, I hope you forgive the dilettantism of my statements. I don't think my having no hard evidence to back up what I say should prevent me from trying to make a point:
I know next to nothing about killerwhales, all of which I learned from the before mentioned BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough, in which it was suggested that many of the various and highly diverging behaviours attested in killerwhales were learned behaviours transmitted from generation to generation, and thus not heavily based in instinct. The wikipediapage dedicated to KW also refers to behaviours that qualify them to your definition of teaching, at least to the degree that they provide materials and occasions for practicing hunting-skills as in numerous other mammalian carnivores.
But I think it is safe to say, that they qualify in more ways. It is known that they have language, even dialects, which means highly adaptive means of communication, isn't that right? What is language if not a vocal behaviour "that is conducted by one individual for the purpose of helping another individual to learn something"?
best regards, Ela
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