Fussbucket

by Stacey

A fascinating new study in the journal Cognition shows that three and four-year old children attune to those who provide them with reliable information. According to this short piece in the NY Times Science section, preschoolers spontaneously keep track of the trustworthiness of those around them.

“Humans make mistakes,” Susan A. J. Birch of the University of British Columbia and colleagues write in the current issue of the journal Cognition. “They trick; they lie; they have different levels of knowledge and different areas of expertise; and they offer information even when they are uncertain.”

The challenge for the child is figuring out whom to believe, and the study suggests that this process starts early and without prompting by adults.

For the study, two puppets gave the children accurate or inaccurate information about everyday objects the children already knew, the article says. When the children were then shown objects they did not recognize and given different made-up names for them or explanations for their use, they responded to the names used by the puppet who had been right earlier.

This kind of study speaks directly to my love of Montessori early childhood education. Montessori classrooms are designed to provide children with lots of real information with the idea that children crave knowledge about the natural world and the culture to which they were born.

My son is four. Because of his experiences in Montessori school, he knows the names and shapes of all the continents and could probably recognize them better than me if we were presented with an unmarked globe. This isn’t about academic precociousness. I honestly don’t care when he starts reading or how long it takes before he can count to one hundred with no assistance. I want him to be happy. And I knew he was the day he got into the car after school and shouted, “Mom, I did South America!”

It’s been one hundred years since Maria Montessori advised parents and teachers to give children the facts. This new study shows they’ll listen up if we do.