Cognitive / Social development through apprenticeship rather than by peers

[Shiroi Tora]

Children learn through many means. Modeling allows them to learn as a whole. When they take after someone they admire, they take on (so long as their model is positive) many positive aspects. How the person (mentor) arrives at decisions becomes apparent after the child sees a pattern of cause and effect. Through discussion, the child is exposed to methods of thought as well as new information. They see how the mentor prioritized, processed and acted on the information. It is very efficient and is the way the world generally operates.

It is the child who never looks upward to learn that is kept in perpetual adolescence. Actually, reading books is apprenticing to the author. School is supposed to be the same thing. So far as structured learning...it is either.. learning from the learned...or the blind leading the blind.

Correct social rules generally come from above also.

Yes? 

[Nie]

Just makes me think of weighing information and source credibility. A child can have a mentor and observe - harvest the information in whole but, as for taking it in - it would depend on how the source's relative credibility is, if s/he doesnt trust him bias can influence one into labelling this info as wrong(opposite of what ought to be) unless alraecy accepted logical facts (to the observer)would be strong enough to compel the person to accept it as right. I guess that also kicks in in the event of observing multiple approaches to the same problem handled by different people, at times one tends to accept the approach of the one they feel is more credible - and not necessarily the method being efficient or optimal - hence also why some end up learning the wrong things, relatively speaking. And of course not everyone has the same levels on bias and the logical.

Sorry, not really my field so Im just babbling nonsense probably. But its interesting

[Shiroi Tora]

Yes...it is vital to logic (correct premise)...to science....math....everything...especially parenting.  A basic concept to learn is to do mental experiments.  They can take the proposed premise and, using the available information...run it forward in his mind...and come to a conclusion.  With multiple paths...they can do multiple mental experiments and pick the most effective and efficient one.  This can be started by having him read passages (or having them read to him)....and asking what he thinks will happen...and why.  This teaches the child to predict events based upon seen and later on unseen (at the time) evidence.  Asking for other ways to solve a problem also teaches lateral thinking.   This leads to creative, as well as formal, thinking.