Twitter Book Club: John Holt (1964) How Children Learn - Chapter 9

Learning & Love

"For it is love, not tricks and techniques of thought, that lies at the heart of all true learning. Can we bring ou... http://tl.gd/8tek6mless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
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Holt talks about falling in love with one's own learning in this chapter. He cites a story by Seymour Papert who talks about how he learned to love math by studying gears when he was a small boy. He found the gears wonderful, he fell in love with them. What learning did I fall in love with when I was younger:

1. I loved the computer and trying to figure out how to program it. I would spend hours learning how to make it do things in BASIC. I learned much math and probably a fair amount of physics through my love of programming.
2. I loved painting. I fell in love with the ability to convey such rich meaning in a medium that could be "read" in such a quick time frame. I fell in love with some of the great works of art by others that evoked an emotion and/or revealed a great truth. I stood silently transfixed once in front of a Marc Rothko painting in his chapel in Texas for this very reason.
   
3. I fell in love with Legos and construction.
4. I fell in love with philosophy and what wrestling with profound ideas would do for my own growth and understanding of so many other things. And, through my love of philosophy I discovered a love for the printed word, a love which escaped me until well into my college years.
5. I fell in love with film and narrative storytelling very early on and especially science fiction.
   
6. I fell in love with politics and became fascinated very early on with how people could all have such different views of the world, of right and wrong, of justice, and what ought to be done.

What love lies at the center of your most important learning?