A Window of opportunity...

I have noticed Grade 4-5 children some times ask profound questions. There is a narrow window of opportunity as children grow-up. It is between 9-11 years. This is the age where children are exposed to a lot of things in real world. They are old enough to understand the technical things around them. For example,  how elections and voting happens, what is open heart surgery, how does one get selected for national cricket team or which aircraft can go super-sonic etc.

They know these things but not necessarily do they understand them. In fact, at age 9-11 they are not old enough to understand how really complicated some of these things can get. They are blissfully unaware of the complexities of real world. It creates a sort of over-confidence in their mind that they know it and can tackle things.

This leads to a very fortunate situation - they are not afraid to raise some fundamental questions or take a shot at explanations or suggest outrageous ideas. One boy said, why can't we inject chlorophyll so that we can make our own food ? Other girl asked, why do we see the world up-right, if convex lens in our eye produces inverted image ? Another one asked about why there isn't a special symbol for units of area rather than, square meter ? What is zero divided by zero ? They couldn't believe that Euler proved its impossible to cross seven bridges of Konigsberg, they tried for many hours to solve it. They appreciate the beauty of Russell's paradox. There are more questions and suggestions in my class, I run out of time to complete my agenda.

What goes wrong then when they grow older ? Children tend to get a ready-made view of the complex world. The complexity of the reality sets-in. This directly diminishes their ability to ask un-adulterated questions and generate naive ideas. Sadly, the more learned you become, the less likely you are to take a fundamental approach.

I get some of the most profound ideas, most fundamental questions and most daring suggestions from the kids of age group 9-11 years. If excited properly and left loose to think freely, these kids often get to very core of the concepts and questions. May be we should hold back teaching them complex technical things for a while and let them be naive for a year or two more. Its a challenge to teach kids more yet keep them naive in spirit - so that they can keep thinking bold concepts and ask deeper questions.