They'll learn much more than I'll ever know

Listening to Louis Armstrong on the radio the other day set me thinking.

"I hear babies cry, I watch then grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know"

Will they?

I'm not sure. Yes, there is more to know these days. More has been discovered, invented, learned; teaching methods have changed and hopefully improved; and the internet is a wonderful resource for research. But some things will stay the same: the maths I learned at school still applies today.

But what I think is different is the way children are living. Today's children don't have the freedom we had to play outside - not that they'd want to when they can play on their tablets. (Or so the media tells me.) So it's possible that children could miss out on a lot, most importantly, the development of an enquiring mind.

We take our grandchildren to the woods and the beaches. We encourage them to jump in puddles, climb on trees, pick up things, both living and non-, we ask questions, we answer questions, we definitely favour getting dirty and trying. 

Schools do a wonderful job but one teacher shared between twenty to thirty children can't possibly devote as much time to a rather boring piece of stick that a grandparent can. 'It's not a stick! It's a conductor's baton: listen to the music! It's a magic wand - I can make you disappear! It's a .. light sabre? Okay.'

So I wonder if they will know more than we do. They'll have the chance and the resources to find out and learn more but will they have the curiosity, the enquiring mind, the inventor's creativity?

Having said that I know my children are all smarter than I am but I like to think that's because we gave them a good start. And Husband's brains.