“Flow to Learn” by Carmen Viktoria Gamper

Spontaneous education? I can definitely relate. As a lifetime learner, I believe we learn when we have something we need to know. Children would be about the same as adults in that area. As youngsters, they’re busy learning how to function in the world, talking, walking, and living. Then we spend the rest of their lives telling them to shut up! How can that be right?

This lady has some keen observations about how children learn, and how adults find their natural flow. Learning with a beginner’s mind, following the full-on curiosity of a toddler, or pushing through and mastering the flow of educational need, we all have a foundation of learning required for living.

Children have a natural desire to ask questions and get answers. Some more than others. If instead of responding with frustration, we answered every question as if it really mattered, I believe more children would continue having that natural curiosity and ASKING rather than destroying things to find out how they work.

MORE ON FLOW TO LEARN: https://flowtolearn.com/

I was reminded of my brother taking apart the bathroom sink when he was a tot, because he wanted to know how to use a pair of pliers. He figured it out. He became a profoundly amazing plumber, and has rebuilt several homes. Plus he became a mechanic in the military where he went on many missions specifically because he was the BEST mechanic in their battalion.

Gamper recommends encouraging the beginner’s mind. She also recommends a healthy dose of Hands-on Learning. The process of learning she recommends throughout includes a cultivated process of positive thinking, contemplating current location and events, and then applying the lessons in ways that grow all skills. These were interesting tactics that I found intellectually stimulating.

Gamper mentioned on more than one occasion in the book, creating a safe environment for learning. I believe as a nation, we’ve side stepped that issue for a few years now, and I think it’s time to get back to the issue of children being our most prized resource. When we care about and protect our children, they learn and develop abilities to expand knowledge and information that is readily available to free thinking concepts that broaden our outflow of ideas.

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Learn-Recognizing-Supporting-Condition/dp/1734797088

When the greatest generation passes from this would, we’re going to need a generation of innovative, intellectually well balanced individuals who can look to the future and see the greatness that we can become. And we need them to be able to look into the past and recognize the extraordinarily solid foundation they’ve been given upon which to build. I believe the best way we can do this is to teach our children how to fly while offering them well-grounded basic ideas that will reward them with a cozy home to return to. Gamper’s gift of rethreading the needle with valid and qualified structure reminded me that one of our superpowers as a nation has been our ability to balance hard work, solid ethics, and resilience with integrity and superpowers of authentic self-discipline. The real stuff, not that fake kind of disingenuous forced “esteem” that doesn’t allow children to face the literal consequences of their own choices.

I recommend this book. It stimulated my desire to keep learning.

by John Davis, posted by Michael Rand