We are all born with a natural desire to learn

I haven't added anything to my list of defining beliefs. It's time for that to change.


I actually have two related beliefs that I have been struggling in regards to how I want to handle them. Do I want to include both, or should I use one? I ultimately decided that my list is starting to become too lengthy for it's original purpose, and these two beliefs are a little too close to justify the inclusion of both.

Learning is contagious.

I have been saying this for years, and I truly believe it. When people see others learning how to do something, curiosity generally leads to a desire to understand what the others are learning.

This is a little too narrow. Although observing others who are learning can push someone to learn, we don't actually need to see others learn for our natural desires to emerge. That's why I have instead decided to add the following to my list of defining beliefs.

We are all born with a natural desire to learn.

All you have to do is look at how we learn prior to schooling. How we learn to walk and talk is clearly benefiting from our own desires to move and communicate. As long as we see a benefit, we will do what it takes to learn new skills.

Like many of my defining beliefs, this could be viewed as a direct attack on the schools. Teachers frequently use the lack of a desire to learn as proof of their importance. In most cases, they try to prove their point by looking at high school students. High school students don't want to learn, so teachers need to force them to learn.

In many ways, teachers are right on this particular issue. After a decade of being trained to view learning as a chore, most people will lose the desire to learn. This raises an important question. Should we really be defending teachers on the grounds that they destroy the natural desire to learn?