The real excitement is collaborating with computer scientists and neuroscientists and starting to understand in detail how children learn so much so quickly. Alison Gopnik childcollaboratecomputer Change image and share on social
What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness. Alison Gopnik adulthoodanswerchild Change image and share on social
Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention. Alison Gopnik imagineinventionmother Change image and share on social
I'm the oldest of six children and I had my own first baby when I was 23. So I've always been interested in babies, and I had lots of opportunities to watch them. Alison Gopnik babychildhave Change image and share on social
If parents are the fixed stars in the child's universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling, sometimes scorching comets whizzing nearby. Alison Gopnik celestialchildcomet Change image and share on social
I wanted to answer big questions about humanity, about how it is that we understand about the world, how we can know as much as we do, why human nature is the way that it is. And it always seemed to me that you find answers to those questions by looking at children. Alison Gopnik answerbigchild share on social
If you just, pretty much, take a random 15-month-old, just sit and watch them for 10 minutes and count out how many experiments, how much thinking you see going on, and it will put the most brilliant scientist to shame. Alison Gopnik brilliantcountexperiment share on social
Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from the data and ideas of other scientists. The recent studies show that children also learn in these ways. Alison Gopnik analyzechilddatum share on social
Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise. Alison Gopnik answerexpectgood Change image and share on social
We do nothing for children between the ages of zero and five. And we seem to be quite happy to have children growing up in not just poverty, which wouldn't be so bad, but isolation, lack of people around them, lack of support, lack of ability to go out and play in the dirt. Alison Gopnik abilityagebad share on social