HOW WE LEARN : Nature or Nurture

"How We Learn” by Stanislas Dehaene published by Penguin Books shakes the old held notions about how learning happens, the basis of our  civilisation. A must read for academicians, practitioners, policy makers in education sector, public policy, the book opens up new perspectives and present insights after considerable research.

The book is divieded into 3 parts. While the first part deals with what is learning per se, the later part delves into the process of learning which our brain adopts. The concept of hardwired and plasticity is discussed and makes a case for adaptability in learning process. The author states that the learning is a process which is unique to homo sapiens as they can adapt and learn. infact, Pedagogy is a priviledge for us as no other species teaches its offspring, takes time to monitor progress and point out errors. the invention of school has vastly added our capacity and capabilities. 

In chapter 2, Why Our brains learns better than current machines:, the author has delved into a the current trend of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The author states that inspite of ground breaking development, the AI has its limitation and human brain surpasses all advances. 

In Chapter 3, he states that babies are not blank slates as they possess knowledge of objects, spaces,  people etc in first few months only. He adds that Probability theory is the language of science and infants speak this language way before they even pronounce their first alphabet, they manipulate probabilities and draw logical conclusions from the observations they make. 

In chapter Nurture's Mind, the author mentions that there are different types of memoris namely Working memory, Episodic memory, Semantic memory and Procedural Memory. An important point to note is the role of nutirtion as key element of learning. as much as 50 % of body's energy is used up by young child's brain and glucose, vitamins, iron, iodine and fatty acids are necessry for brain growth. he adds that that Alcohal  is teratogen, a substance that causes embryonic malformations of the body and brain: it is true poison for the developing nervous system, one that should clearly be avoided throughout pregnancy. The brain is not shaped entirely by the inputs as neurons are already present at the time of birth and only last bit of information is refined. Learning does not happen through exposure to data and information, instead child brain generates new hypotheses and tests it in ongoing manner. This mental model is core to the learning process. 

The author identifies attention, active engagement, error feedback and consolidation as secret ingredients of successful learning and errors are not the hallmark of academically weak students but is integral part of learning process to check the discrepancy between hypotheses and reality. Some key revelations from the scientific study point that:

•  Human brains till day remains most fastest, energy efficient information processing device which extracts maximum amount of information from each day and transforms it at night into abstract and general knowledge to be used at later date. 

• Children must be introduced to a second language ASAP to make best use of brains plasticity.

• Making them sleep adequately and deep is key to brain development.

• Routinisation of activities is best shot for learning. Engaging and making learning conditions difficult help them in talking efforts more cognitively leading to increased retention of knowledge. 

• Sleep is a crucial link in the learning. The brain plays models and memories on loop and strengthens the previous day learning. Infact, anything read/done just before sleeping will be best remembered.

The book is an excellent piece of scientific literature on the topic. Learning which many historians and evolutionary biologists have identified as keystone in human civilisation is discussed in detail with relevant studies.