the bean and the bear

Human beings are learning creatures. Babies come out of the womb curious and ready to learn. They immediately begin to explore and learn about their world, without our persuasion. Later, they learn how to walk and talk without being artificially motivated. They don’t take a course. They don’t ‘goof off’ while learning these skills because they’re bored or the ‘work’ is too hard. They are not marked, tested, graded or nagged to practice. They just do it. They are motivated by wanting to do these things well, like bigger people.

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Wendy Priesnitz, in the introduction entitled Learning in the Real World, from the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier

(via radicallane)