Have you ever seen individuals who are more delighted to gain knowledge in every category from the very childhood? Or you are one of them? Some are also more talented in other areas? How do you see and justify this different personal quality?
This difference in delight in gaining knowledge may be explained by ontogenetic endowment, part of which is endowment of energy. There is no other person that looks exactly like another person and the endowment of energy at the time of conception is a similar variable. Those who are endowed with considerable energy are able to use that energy in a wider scope of activity such as interest in surroundings and people the knowledge of which increases adaptation and social functioning.
Dear Thomas, the question is that can this "endowment of energy" be manipulated in the desired way purposefully?
Certain things are inborn. For example, Pele's quality as a footballer was inborn. In the same way, some people may be interested in reading books. This is inborn.
What I mean is, the qualities required to be a Pele are not possible to be 'taught'. Even the best coach in the world cannot make one a Pele. In the same way, some children become interested to read books on their own. This quality cannot be forced upon.
About the difference, is any explanation needed? Not everyone can be a Leonardo or a Picasso. They were different from all others. What can we do about that difference now?
How about the environment? Isn't it influential in flourishing one's aptitudes in specific areas? For example, Einstein, prior to taking on science, was fond of religion; but when he came into contact with science, he was fascinated by that. Although he might have had some other aptitudes in other areas, but for not coming into contact with those concepts, he never got emerged in them?
How do you think?
Environment is a much larger concept. You mean - circumstance!
Create circumstance if necessary, instead of being its slave!
I think it is a mix of nature and nurture. Most children are very curious. What they are curious about may differ though. Talent and the thirst for knowledge may share a correlation but not quite a direct causal relationship. Or it may be argued that someone who has a lot of talent for something develops the keenness to further their knowledge in that field. Conversely, someone with the keenness and passion to learn more about something may also develop a talent for working with it. There is an unstated interdependence in such cases.
Genetics may play a role, but the environment is no less significant. The pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake may be outdated but it is important for parents, teachers, instructors and caregivers to create an ambience where the child is able to look upon ideas and things more than just a means to an end.
Encourage kids to question all observable phenomena and in time, they will have so many new thoughts about the unobservable and the abstract. More often than not, that implies modeling that in our own lives, so that it becomes the natural thing for them do. They need to feel safe in certain amounts of uncertainty, risk-taking, experimentation (of course, all with some thought applied to them all) and to know that it is more important to ask the right questions than to find the right answers. And that right does not have to be one, absolute right, but that perspectives abound.
It is also important to identify different learning styles and that far from being linear, learning is actually synchronic and dependent upon the knowledge seeker's personal constructs. Make them see lasting reasons for loving the pursuit of knowledge, and to do that with humility. That, is very important. After all, the more we get to know, the more we realize how little we know and how much more there is to know.
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