Quotations: Nature and nurture

 

«So-called natural development is not a product of maturation. It is a product of everyday learning, and it is therefore highly dependent on the learning opportunities that the child finds in his or her surrounding culture, in its cultural stock. This doesn’t mean that it would be possible to teach a child everything at any age and that his state of maturity plays no role in the course of this development. It does mean, however, that each development of higher mental capabilities needs to be achieved through learning, and that the child, for that to happen, needs to find the necessary opportunities in his cultural and human environment.» (1986b, p. 179)

«Dispositions open up possibilities; environment and education will have to make full use of them.» (1986b, p. 180)

«We can see that this conception of education takes very seriously the culture and the society in which the child grows up and is educated, as well as the language in which their common knowledge is formulated. There is no possibility for the child to grow and mature without the educational support of people who model and exemplify the forms of action and thought, the attunements, and the orientations in an adult and mature way, and who help the child to build up the respective ordering in his own thinking, acting, and experiencing. Leaving the child to grow is no alternative.» (1983a, 392)

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