Alison Gopnik

A könyv címe nem tréfás és túlzó metafora, hanem mély és komoly analógia, mely a fejlődéslélektan mai gyermekképét sűríti magába. A mű központi tézise szerint a csecsemő veleszületett elméletalkotó képességgel jön a világra, melynek segítségével a világ különböző területeiről szerzett tapasztalatait koherens rendszerekbe, úgynevezett "naiv elméletekbe" szervezi. Ez az ösztönös elméletalkotó aktivitás pedig erősen emlékeztet a felnőtt kutatók tudatos tevékenységére. Nyissuk ki hát a gyermekszoba ajtaját, és lessünk be a bölcsőbe! Amit látunk, az nem más, mint maga az ártatlanság, tehetetlenség és gondolattalanság. De valójában a bölcsőben a legnagyszerűbb elme fekszik, a leghatékonyabb tanulógép, mely csak létezik az univerzumban...

One of the world's leading child psychologists shatters the myth of 'good parenting'. Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call 'parenting' is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the huge industry surrounding it have transformed childcare into obsessive, controlling, and goal-orientated labour intended to create a particular kind of child, and therefore a particular kind of adult. Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. 'Parenting' won't make children learn - but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parenting is profoundly wrong - it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for children and their parents too.

A cutting-edge exploration of what evolutionary psychology is teaching us of the development and learning of children, in the tradition of Matt Ridley's The Red Queen and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop emotionally and intellectually, and are beginning to realize that from birth babies already know a staggering amount about the world around them. In the first book of its kind for a popular audience, three leading US scientists draw on twenty-five years of research in philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics and neuroscience to reveal what babies know and how they learn it.

Selected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times 'The Gardener and the Carpenter should be required reading for anyone who is, or is thinking of becoming a parent' Financial Times Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call 'parenting' is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the huge industry surrounding it have transformed childcare into obsessive, controlling, and goal-orientated labour intended to create a particular kind of child, and therefore a particular kind of adult. Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. 'Parenting' won't make children learn - but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parenting is profoundly wrong - it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for children and their parents too.