The message is clear. Learn from your children, if you have children patientlenough to take you through the motions. The famous American linguist Naom Chomsky discovered among other major discoveries in the field of language that children are much more talented in learning a completely new language. They constantly outperform their parents who have much more life experience and who spoke and written ten times as many words. The same applies to the learning of new technology, especially those technologies fuelled by information. Children are much more talented in learning new skills required by today’s computers, software and others because they learn these new things and new technology as part of their normal discovery. They get used to the idea of trial and error. They are not at all shy to experiment. Older people have the normal fear that they will break the device or lose information. Children are accustomed to the redo mode. Without the redo mode life today in the creation of any value would almost be impossible. Through endless spurts of trial and error we discover the new world.
A hundred years ago there was not all that much new to learn. Today the situation is completely different. One wonders how much hard disc space used by the average child in 1909 would compare with the space used by the average child of 2009. Is such an analogy fair? With the assumption that the knowledge gathered in the world is doubling every 3-5 years, it is safe to assume that the 1904 child had theoretically speaking, access to less than 5% of the knowledge of today. In 1909 knowledge was confined largely to books in a few libraries, life experience and the wisdom of wise people. With 20 times the knowledge the 1909 child had at his disposal, the modern child can access the unfolding world by sitting in the comfort of his house. Let us now ask again if the argument and comparison is fair?
One can continue and draw all sorts of funny arguments and quote mind boggling statistics, but the fact of the matter is that today’s child lives in a dynamically expanding universe of knowledge, while their great grandparents were confined to a fairly static oeuvre of knowledge. It is like comparing views of the universe with the naked eye to a glimpse through the Hubble telescope orbiting in space. If this analogy is valid today, how will the universe look through the monster tool that will obsolete the Hubble telescope a few years hence?
Mind images 100 years ago were shaped through conversation, occasional reading, slow travelling and imagination, which people through the ages had in abundance. Mind images today are fuelled by television, an abundance of books and the untapped reservoir of knowledge available on Internet and in all corners of life. Gathering mind images 100 years ago was a fairly simple process within known structures and resource bases. Time was not really important. The process was slow and systematic.
This process will continue every year, although many carefully planned pointers For ages men did not really find the need to learn dramatically different things. Arguably the greatest futurist of all times, Alvin Toffler gives us a deeper understanding of the impact of the magnitude of change on the world in his revolutionary international bestseller Future Shock that was written more than 3 decades ago. He describes the impact of change on 800 lifetimes over the past 50 000 years as follows: “Only during the last seventy lifetimes has it been possible to communicate effectively from one lifetime to another – as writing made it possible to do so. Only during the last six lifetimes did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last four has it been possible to measure time with any precision. Only in the last two has anyone anywhere used an electric motor. And the overwhelming majority of all the material goods we use in life today have been developed within the present, the 800th lifetime.” (Toffler, 1970, p 22). Add another lifetime or at least a generation that emerged since 1970 and re-contextualise the argument. A total new world has unfolded since Toffler coined a universal truth. We’ve seen the Internet infiltrating all corners of the globe. A new wealth of knowledge exploded right before our eyes, eyes that are open off course.
Children thrive on technology. If they ask for a computer upgrade, listen to the merit of their demands although they show signs of weakness. First of course they will convince you that an upgrade is not really cost effective, an option that is correct almost half the time. Secondly they will opt for top of the range and will quote technical detail in support of their arguments that confuses your already overcrowded brain.will be put out in a very subtle manner as soon as halfway through the cycle.
Computer literate children show a natural talent to cope with the game of winning in the new world. They think along the lines of the new rules. Children without computers are deprived of an essential building block to shape their future. Parents with the financial means to buy their children computers but fail to do so should be ashamed.
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