LEARNING HOW TO LEARN

Below are the first words of the book Discover Your Genius by Michael J. Gelb

ON THE SHOULDERS  OF GIANTS

You were born with the potential for genius.  We all were; just ask any mother.

In 1451, in the Italian seaport of Genoa, a new mother saw it in the eyes of her firstborn child, unaware that the scintillating power of the 100 billion neurons in his brain would one day redefine the shape of the planet on which she lived.  Decades later, the wife of a prosperous Polish merchant saw it in the eyes of her baby, though she would never have dared to predict that the connections his adult mind would eventually make would effectively reorder the universe.  Three centuries and an ocean away, a woman of land and privilege didn't know that what she saw in the eyes of her child was the dawn of the capacity to grasp and synthesize the essence of Classical, Renaissance, and Enlightenment thinking---and reinvent the notion of personal liberty for centuries to come.

Few of us may claim to be geniuses, but almost every parent will tell you of the spark of genius they saw in the first moment they looked into their new baby's eyes.  Your mother saw it too.  And although she may not have realized it, the newborn brain she saw at work shared the same miraculous potential as the infant minds that would one day achieve the greatness described above.

Even of you have yet to revolutionize anyone's ideas about the planet or its inhabitants, you came into the world with the same spark of genius beheld so long ago by the mothers of Christopher Columbus, Nicolaus Copearnicius, and Thomas Jefferson.  By its very design, the human brain harbors vast potential for memory, learning,and creativity.  Yours does too---far more than you might think.  The 100-billion-neuron tally is a simple fact of human physiology, according to the greatest neurologist Sir Charles Sherrington, who describes the human brain as "an enchanted loom" ready to weave a unique tapestry of creative self-expression."*

The outcome of this post is not saying that we should all aspire to have a little genius.  Rather that with the choices that we make everyday we will be setting in motion the adult that our child will become.  Will we chose to read to our children, give them crayons and markers, walks in nature and other experiences that will offer them the skills to develop a love of learning and exploring. Will they be able to harness the power with which they were born and as parents will we be able to give them the most important skill of learning how to learn?  I found Discover Your Genius fascinating  it gives me a a reason to pause and think about what I should do as a parent to help my children reach their potential.

*  Michael J. Gelb, Discovering Your Genius How To Think Like History's Ten Most Revolutionary Minds.  (New York:  First Quill, 2002, p.1-2).