Part 4 of 29 in Helping Your Children Learn: What Parents Need to Know← Part 3Part 5 →
I’ve been reflecting on the essence of learning, particularly in the context of children. As an IVF specialist and angel investor, I’ve witnessed how children naturally engage with the world. Before they ever step into a classroom, they have already accomplished immense intellectual feats. I recently watched a toddler at a family gathering, exploring the world with an audacity that is both enviable and instructive. She was not just playing; she was learning, absorbing the environment in ways we adults often forget to appreciate.
Children are born learning. This isn’t a romantic notion; it’s a fact. They have an innate ability to decode complex human behaviors, languages, and emotions without formal instruction. The beauty of this process lies in its organic nature. No one hands a child a manual on how to walk or talk. They manage it because they need to communicate and navigate their world.
John Holt, an influential educator, once observed that formal schooling often interferes with this natural learning process. He argued that schools tend to take over what is already a miraculous process and, in many cases, diminish it. I tend to agree. The education system, with its penchant for rote learning, often stifles the innate curiosity that propels children to learn.
Take, for example, the simple act of making chai, a ritual in many Indian households. A child doesn’t start with a textbook on ratios. She begins by observing the entire process — the boiling of milk, the addition of spices, the careful pour. It’s a holistic experience. The specifics, like fractions, only come into play when there’s a need to share the milk between two pans. This is real learning — learning that sticks because it is relevant and immediate.
Contrast this with traditional schooling, where children are handed discrete pieces of information — spellings, dates, formulae — and are expected to assemble them into a coherent whole at some future point. It’s akin to handing a budding chef a list of ingredients and expecting them to understand the art of cooking without ever letting them into the kitchen. Some children survive this system; many do not. They become adept at storing information they cannot use, performing recitations that lack true understanding.
This disconnect between real-world application and theoretical instruction is something I see mirrored in the startup ecosystem as well. Aspiring entrepreneurs often come armed with business plans and pitch decks, but it’s their ability to adapt, to learn from doing, that often determines their success. In a way, startups are like children — they learn best by diving in, by doing, by making mistakes and figuring out solutions on the go.
The idea that children learn best by doing is not a new one. Yet, it seems persistently ignored by our education system. We are quick to categorize learning as something that happens in the confines of a classroom, ignoring the vast potential of everyday experiences as learning opportunities. This is particularly evident in India, where children in joint families often grow up speaking multiple languages, learning to navigate complex social dynamics and responsibilities from a young age.
In my experience, children do not engage with the world in order to prepare for some distant future. They are interested in the now. The future, as Holt aptly put, is a side-effect. A child helping in a family shop is not “practising life skills for Class 6.” She is actively participating in her world, learning arithmetic because a wrong measure impacts the business directly.
This brings me to a crucial point: the fallacy of “study now, live later.” It’s a mantra that many Indian children are familiar with. Study for the unit test, to study for the board exam, to then prepare for the entrance exam, so you can live your life at twenty-two. It’s a bizarre postponement of life that, quite frankly, doesn’t work. Children are astute; they sense that their lives are being put on hold, and they react in different ways. Some comply, others rebel, and a few manage to carve out a secret world where they continue to learn in their own ways.
As parents and educators, we need to pause and consider: what is your child trying to do this week that is real, not preparatory? This question challenges the assumption that learning is best structured and formalized. It suggests that perhaps the most profound learning happens outside the classroom, in real-time, with real consequences.
In my role as an angel investor, I’ve seen parallels in the startup world. Founders, much like children, thrive when they are allowed to explore and experiment. The most successful entrepreneurs are those who have not been afraid to learn from failure, who understand that the journey is not just a means to an end, but an end in itself. It’s a lesson I advocate for in education reform as well. We need to cherish and cultivate the innate curiosity that children possess, not suppress it with an over-reliance on testing and standardization.
In conclusion, children are born learning, and our role should be to nurture this natural propensity, not stifle it. Whether in the realm of education or entrepreneurship, the ability to learn from the world around us, to engage fully with the present, is an invaluable skill. It’s time we recognize and value it for what it truly is — the foundation of all meaningful learning and growth.