Alison Gopnik

This exciting book by three pioneers in the new field of cognitive science discusses important discoveries about how much babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. It argues that evolution designed us both to teach and learn, and that the drive to learn is our most important instinct. It also reveals as fascinating insights about our adult capacities and how even young children -- as well as adults -- use some of the same methods that allow scientists to learn so much about the world. Filled with surprise at every turn, this vivid, lucid, and often funny book gives us a new view of the inner life of children and the mysteries of the mind.

In The Gardener and the Carpenter, Alison Gopnik, one of the world's leading child psychologists, illuminates the paradoxes of parenthood from a scientific perspective and shatters the myth of "good parenting".Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call “parenting” is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the multibillion-dollar industry surrounding it have transformed child care into obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented labor intended to create a particular kind of child and therefore a particular kind of adult.In The Gardener and the Carpenter , the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong―it’s not just based on bad science, it’s bad for kids and parents, too.Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative―and to be very different both from their parents and from each other.

For most of us, having a baby is the most profound, intense, and fascinating experience of our lives. Now scientists and philosophers are starting to appreciate babies, too. The last decade has witnessed a revolution in our understanding of infants and young children. Scientists used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Recently, they have discovered that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined. And there is good reason to believe that babies are actually smarter, more thoughtful, and even more conscious than adults. This new science holds answers to some of the deepest and oldest questions about what it means to be human. A new baby’s captivated gaze at her mother’s face lays the foundations for love and morality. A toddler’s unstoppable explorations of his playpen hold the key to scientific discovery. A three-year-old’s wild make-believe explains how we can imagine the future, write novels, and invent new technologies. Alison Gopnik - a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother - explains the groundbreaking new psychological, neuroscientific, and philosophical developments in our understanding of very young children, transforming our understanding of how babies see the world, and in turn promoting a deeper appreciation for the role of parents.

Words, Thoughts, and Theories articulates and defends the theory theory of cognitive and semantic development, the idea that infants and young children, like scientists, learn about the world by forming and revising theories, a view of the origins of knowledge and meaning that has broad implications for cognitive science. Gopnik and Meltzoff interweave philosophical arguments and empirical data from their own and other's research. Both the philosophy and the psychology, the arguments and the data, address the same fundamental epistemological question: How do we come to understand the world around us?Recently, the theory theory has led to much interesting research. However, this is the first book to look at the theory in extensive detail and to systematically contrast it with other theories. It is also the first to apply the theory to infancy and early childhood, to use the theory to provide a framework for understanding semantic development, and to demonstrate that language acquisition influences theory change in children. The authors show that children just beginning to talk are engaged in profound restructurings of several domains of knowledge. These restructurings are similar to theory changes in science, and they influence children's early semantic development, since children's cognitive concerns shape and motivate their use of very early words. But, in addition, children pay attention to the language they hear around them and this too reshapes their cognition, and causes them to reorganize their theories.

Quel parent ne culpabilise jamais de ne pas user des bonnes méthodes ? Ou d'avoir « raté » quelque chose ? Depuis trente ans, la façon dont nous éduquons nos enfants a été bouleversée. Avant, on apprenait à être parent sur le tas. Aujourd'hui, être parent, c'est un métier ! Avec un objectif précis : transformer au plus vite les enfants en adultes responsables, et productifs... Parents et enfants sont-ils plus heureux qu'avant ? La réponse est non.. Heureusement, les nouvelles sciences du développement de l'enfant ont enfin découvert la seule vraie bonne méthode d'éducation : il n'y en pas ! Alison Gopnik nous invite à penser autrement l'enfance, cette période cruciale pour expérimenter toujours plus un monde qui change désormais à une vitesse supersonique. Plutôt que d'essayer de les canaliser, laissons nos enfants exprimer leur créativité, laissons-les explorer, laissons-les chambouler nos maisons et nos vies bien rangées ! Autant d'expériences qui leur permettront de s'adapter à un futur incertain, dont personne ne sait vraiment ce qu'il leur réserve. L'avenir, c'est eux..

Excellent Book

Comment les expériences de la petite enfance influencent-elles nos vies d'adultes ? Pourquoi les enfants passent-ils tous une bonne partie de leur temps dans un monde de créatures imaginaires, à faire semblant d'être Jack Sparrono ou la Fée Clochette ? Comment en apprennent-ils autant et aussi vite sur le monde qui les entoure et les êtres qui les environnent ? Comment construisent-ils leur identité ? Que comprennent-ils de l'amour ? Que savent-ils du bien et du mal ?. Depuis que les sciences cognitives ont posé un nouveau regard sur les bébés et les tout jeunes enfants, chercheurs et philosophes vont de découvertes en découvertes. Nous commençons à comprendre ce que cela fait d'être un bébé - une expérience différente en bien des choses de celle des adultes et qui, pourtant, lui est immanquablement liée.. Puisse ce livre aider à prendre la pleine mesure de la richesse et de l'importance de l'enfance, et à percevoir en quoi nous sommes le résultat de cette époque de notre vie..