Alison Gopnik Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“Asking questions is what brains were born to do, at least when we were young children. For young children, quite literally, seeking explanations is as deeply rooted a drive as seeking food or water.”

“Texts and e-mails travel no faster than phone calls and telegrams, and their content isn't necessarily richer or poorer.”

“The brain is highly structured, but it is also extremely flexible. It's not a blank slate, but it isn't written in stone, either.”

“I'm afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.”

“Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.”

“What, of course, we want in a university is for people to learn the skills they're going to need outside the classroom. So, having a system that had more emphasis on inquiry and exploration but also on learning and practising specific skills would fit much better with how we know people learn.”

“What we want in students is creativity and a willingness to fail. I always say to students, 'If you've never at some point stayed up all night talking to your new boyfriend about the meaning of life instead of preparing for the test, then you're not really an intellectual.'”

“Babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species, and we grown-ups are production and marketing.”

“Children have a very good idea of how to distinguish between fantasies and realities. It's just they are equally interested in exploring both.”

“The youngest children have a great capacity for empathy and altruism. There's a recent study that shows even 14-month-olds will climb across a bunch of cushions and go across a room to give you a pen if you drop one.”