From the mouths of babes

When I first heard of Plato's idea in the Phaedo that learning is recalling, I thought it was crazy. How could we have once known it all and then forgotten? However, walk into a kindergarten and ask who can draw a horse. I bet all the hands go up. Walk into a middle school classroom and ask the same question and I bet only half the students raise a hand. Ask a group of high schoolers who can draw a horse and maybe one person will say yes. And I bet it will be a heck of a great rendering of a horse. How did everyone forget that they could draw?

The other night I was reading a bed time story to my five year old daughter. It was called "Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail" about a model and muse Picasso found one summer in the south of France. My daughter liked the description of the artist's studio and the life Picasso led. When I was done reading I asked, "Would you like to be an artist when you grow up?"

"Papa," she said, "I already am an artist!"

Comments

[Jeremy]

Love that nugget of wisdom. I wonder if the next generation will have a more fluid view of identity that we do; perhaps "being" many things at once, crossing over the old boundaries of work, play, and learning.