Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More with Professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media Media Production.

0:08Welcome to Raising Good Humans. I'm Dr. Aliza Pressman. Today's episode is with Professor Kathy Hirsch-Pasek, who is one of my heroes in this field. She's so incredible. She runs the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University. She's the author of 14 books. She has hundreds of publications in peer review journals on childhood and infant development. She's an expert on play and learning. And she wrote a book 20 years ago called Einstein Never Used Flashcards, which was one of my favorite books. I thought it was so informative, so brilliant, and so such like perfect translation of the research to parents.

0:55And now there is a anniversary edition revised of Einstein Never Used Flashcards, how our children really learn and play and why they need to play more and memorize less. This book is so awesome. It's an up-to-date playbook on why we should raise our children to be learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls. So one of the other things that we talked about in this conversation that I think is so great is grandparenting and play. And I think if you have some grandparents in your life, if your parents are up for it, this is a great episode to send them because we even talk about how to turn FaceTime interactions into really cool play for grandparents and other loved ones who might be far away.

1:43If you enjoy this episode, please pass it along to someone who might love it too. Screens have changed the entire context for kids. Yeah. It is the last 20 years have been a revolution in how to make kids more anxious, how to let kids lose their self-control, how to create a mental health crisis, how to create induced ADD. I mean, the attention economy is just not what the kids need. They need human to human connection. I know you believe that, you know, and how we get that message across. It's so important. And by the way, I think that it starts so early. I have like so many different areas that I wanted to go into about this because I want to get really practical and talk about things that are in the book that are really important about child development.

2:40But first, because I think there is that whole level of taking information and then using it against yourself, like not like being so afraid to do FaceTime with grandma that you don't have all the benefits of having a FaceTime with grandma. So that's why I thought we could address that really quickly, just to sort of alleviate some of the angst that comes with all of this. And then we'll get into everything. That's a great idea. And I think de-angsting parents will help a lot because I, as I say, I was just with my nine week old. I mean, I'm telling you, they're analytics now for everything. I didn't even know there were so many analytic apps.

3:26And I think it can drive you insane. And when you're not with the baby, you're watching the baby on the monitor. God forbid the baby should roll over or hit their head on the side of the crib. I mean, there's so many things to worry about. And I think we've kind of forgotten that babies followed an evolutionary process, you know, like they're built to last a lifetime and they'll be okay, even if we don't watch them every second. So it's a really interesting phenomenon, this place that we're in right now. And I, you know, I don't, but I also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like There's really cool stuff.

4:03So I actually, I wonder how do you decide what really matters? When you think about this as a developmental psychologist, as a grandmother, how do you decide the distinction? And you talk about this too, between, for example, intelligence and achievement. How do you have that conversation? I know you know, but how do you get it across? Well, you know, it's really hard because we live in such an achievement society. It's really interesting. I mean, I hear from parents that they're so excited when they beat the milestones, you know? So, oh my God, did you see my baby? My baby smiled at seven weeks, not at eight weeks.

4:54My baby rolled over at three months instead of four months. And I love it. I love that you're watching so closely out there. On the other hand, you know, the data don't show that it's predictive of anything in the future. And the other thing that's just kind of interesting is even kids who read earlier, you know, we push down everything in academics to make it, well, if it was first and second grade, let's move it to first. It was in first grade. We move it down to kindergarten, preschool. Well, those kids who read earlier are not necessarily going to be the best readers when they're in third grade.

5:32So what's that about? You know, my mother told me, she was like, you do not wish, and she was a reading specialist, and she said, you do not wish for an early reader because she said, it's so sad because everybody gives so much attention to these early readers for doing this crazy thing, reading, and then everybody reads pretty much. And then nobody cares anymore. And it like is like the beginning of just this terrible feeling of unworthiness. And it was such a, I remember when she said, I mean, obviously you hopefully aren't controlling whether you have an early reader, you just do or don't. But I remember her saying that.

6:12And I think it was probably because she was observing so much from, you know, literacy promotion, which of course is wonderful, but it was just like intense. Well, it is. And I think, you know, part of the issue is that we are so laser focused on reading as an achievement, right? Or on math as an achievement. Can my kids count to 100? Well, do they know what it means? You know, so then they see this little four-year-old or three-year-old is going one, seven, three, two, eight. Well, they're actually perfectly normal. And they know that different, you know, number words go with different objects.

6:50That's already pretty cool. So that's how intelligent grows. And intelligence grows when we're explorers and discoverers. And gosh, then the whole world is in the palm of our hands. Can you help us really think about what are the important questions we can ask ourselves and things we can focus on to try to grow that intelligence without linking it to achievement? I think the best way is to become a really good observer of your kids. Find out what your kids are interested in. What are they drawn to? And sometimes it's the glass of water that's right in front of them or the glass of milk. And sometimes while you're pouring that milk, they get to watch it as it's not really even.

7:39And then as they drink it, it goes down. Like, what's that about? and what happens when they tilt the glass of milk. Now, we don't think of those moments because we don't even see them anymore. As parents, we're so focused on the math and reading that we forget that little physicists are born too. Or how about the two-year-old who's building a tower out of blocks? Again, we don't even think about it, but now let's talk about what it takes for those little hands to put one block on top of another, on top of another, so that it doesn't just topple. I mean, that's teaching that kid about balance.

8:19That's incredible. But again, we don't even notice it. And so part of it is noticing what the kids notice. I always have a great story about, you know, my, my, one of my sons, we would go on a nature walk, you know, wasn't really a nature walk. It was trying to get to school. But every morning we were like trying so hard just to get to school. I was accomplished by nine o 'clock in the morning when I got three kids to school. I'm high-fiving myself. Okay. So the last thing I need is one of my kids to go on a nature walk on my way to the car. But one of them really cared about slugs. So we had to turn over literally every rock along the way to save the slugs.

9:05But that kid was learning something about biology. And if I leaned into it, I could have a whole conversation about slugs and where they lived, why they liked it when it was dark and it was moist. Those are the moments where kids are gaining intelligence, even if they're not gaining the achievement that we think we should be looking at. Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. I love avocado green mattresses. When I had my babies, I was very aware of how many gazillions of hours they spent with their little heads on a mattress. And I would have loved avocado green mattress. Their mission is to be the world's most sustainable brand, the pinnacle of Gats certified organic mattresses, luxury pillows and bedding and quality American made bed frames and furniture.

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12:24And with the code humans at iRestore.com, you can unlock an exclusive discount on the iRestore Elite. that is the ridiculously amazing, but probably silly looking helmet that I wear. That's humans at irastore.com. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Okay. So let's talk about, that's a perfect example of learning through play. And I don't, I don't know if it sounds to people like learning through play. Like, I wonder if you can clarify how wild and vast play is maybe with more examples because - Oh, absolutely. I was thinking about how so many times you hear people say things like they're not learning anything in preschool.

13:15Right, right, right. And the frustration. And then I was thinking about, I wonder if people really know what play is. So let's just take a second to talk about what play is all about. And then I want to give you some examples that I bet you didn't see, but they were so powerful. So one is definition. Boy, have people had a hard time figuring out how to define play. But when something's active and the kid's engaged, by the way, not distracted, but engaged, Here are screens in the background there. And when it's meaningful to them, okay, when it's socially interactive, because we have social brains.

14:01One of my colleagues says you have a socially gated brain. You learn by being in interaction with others. Okay. When it's iterative, it moves a little bit each time you try to play with it. You know, you're changing each Lego part as you put it on to make a better building. And when it's joyful. Now, let me take you in to the living room of an 18-month-old. Okay? And that 18-month-old sees a ball. And that 18-month-old hits the ball. I was going to say rolls the ball. The ball does roll, but maybe it's not as intentional as that. and the ball goes over to you. And then you get the ball and you roll it back to the kid and your kid rolls it back to you.

14:45This is a little squirt, an 18 month old. Now I want you to look more closely at what just happened. That back and forth, sometimes called serve and return when they're learning language, right? That's the basis for language, conversation. And as it turns out, a whole lot of other skills as well as social interaction, all in ballplay. That's unbelievable. How did that happen? And so how do we interrupt that accidentally? Oh my God, we do it all the time. Let me take the case of a kid is drawing. Here's a four-year-old. And a four-year-old sitting there with her crayons and she's doing a magnificent picture.

15:28Problem is you can't tell what the picture is, right? So you go up to the four-year-old who's engaged and playing and you're looking over and you're playing too. And you say, these are the words you shouldn't say. You co-opt. It's called the helicopter pairing. Says, oh, you're drawing a picture of your family. No, I'm not. This is a picture of a circus. So when we lean in and let them tell us what they're drawing, It's much more engaging and they can create a whole conversation because you can ask questions. Oh, what's that? Don't say, oh, there's the clown. I see it now. Right. Then the kid says, oh, can you see?

16:13Here's the tent. Doesn't look anything like a tent. Who cares? But the kid then uses play as a way to express what's going on in her world. And play is really powerful like that. And I'll even go further in saying, I need a little bit more active, engaged, meaningful, joyful, iterative and social stuff myself. I believe we should have more adult recess because adults are being slammed. We're so anxious. So let's make the case for all of us to have a little more play and learn through it. So you've committed your career and life to like getting play that like taken seriously, frankly, the very serious nature of play.

16:59No. How crazy is that? My curiosity about this is how do you get buy-in? Because here's like most people listening right now, like clearly they care about their children or other children that are around them. clearly everybody here is like so excited about understanding the science behind all of this and loves the young people that we're raising. And also it's, you, you get those voices in your head or on the playground, or you hear all the things that, you know, are not happening. If you're spending too much time, quote unquote, playing here, we have this world renowned expert. I feel like I need you.

17:50I'm here. Yeah. To help people understand that you're not talking about this instead of growing intellectually robust thinking human, but actually because that is the path. Yeah, I know. I totally hear you. So the first thing I'll tell you is that there's a lot of good research to say that when kids play their way to a learning goal, they learn it better than when you just teach them what the outcome should be. What? Because then they have agency. And when kids have agency, by the way, you're the same way, you learn it better than when someone robs you of your agency. Okay, now here's the real kicker.

18:37Not only do they learn it better, but they learn more skills than just the skill you're trying to teach. So we call these the six C's. What are they learning? Well, the first thing they're learning is how to collaborate. They're collaborating with other humans because remember I told you play is socially interactive, right? All right. Then once you have collaboration, that builds the foundation for communication. Language is built on collaborating with other people. Then let's move to the next one. By the way, collaboration and communication, aren't they two of the skills that everyone in business says you need right now?

19:15Oh, let's go on. Once you have those two, then you have the skills to build content, whether it's reading or math or social skills or science or the arts. And then once you have content, you can have critical thinking. Oh, that's a biggie today. And curious creativity, really biggie today. And then the last one is the confidence to persist and have the grit to stay on it even if you fail because failure isn't an F. It doesn't mean you did badly. It means, wow, I learned something and I'm ready to do it again and make it better. Now, it turns out the people who are really caring about play right now is the business community because the skills for the future are collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and the confidence to keep at it.

20:16And AI can do the rest. So if you want your kids not to be outsmarted by AI, one of the best things you can do is play with them. Like if we can cultivate these skills instead of trying to outpace AI. Right, right. So now you have this beautiful like revenge of play. Exactly. Again, it's bringing back the human-to-human connection. Look, I know AI is pretending to be human. I get that. And I know the new AI toys, which, by the way, were some of the most horrific things I've ever seen on the marketplace. What are new AI? I don't even know AI toys. Oh, my. Okay. Oh, my gosh. So there were a couple of toys that were introduced this year.

21:10Some of them were flooding in from China. and you could put on on two of them you could put like a little necklace around one of your stuffed animals get ready to be horrified by the way and then your four and five year old could be connected to the entire worldwide web and it says that it gives you companions for your kids nope it doesn't and that it makes parenting easier no it doesn't just one example from PERG, which is the public interest research group that asked the little teddy bear for a five-year-old, so where do you think mommy hides the matches? And it answered and it told the child how to strike a match.

22:00No, no, no. Skip them this holiday season. Wow. You know, I have just been deep diving into AI for older kids and learning about all of that. And I just didn't even consider AI toys. Like why would you? But AI made a deal with Mattel and in China, there, yep, happened in May. So right. The gasp is all you can possibly do at this point. Just, we do not need this. No. Kids need humans. Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. Okay. I think Quince is epic and it is sweater season. It is cashmere sweater season. It's football games. I mean, not for me, but for most of America and most of my family and lattes and Quince is known for their Mongolian cashmere sweaters and they start at$50 and all of Quince items are priced like 50 to 80 % less than similar brands, including these amazing cashmere sweaters.

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26:09well I mean my kids are are good players they in they invent games one of them has this club that they did at school and by the way I'm not anti-tech so you know one of them I think it's just to say you're not anti any of the things that that I think that's what is so relieving is like, you're not saying don't do things that are going to be of positive benefit or part of this new world. It's just like, think about it. Right. And think about what's good. So, you know, you take a case like Minecraft where the kids have a lot of agency. By the way, Minecraft's been well studied, you know, and it really does help kids learn, especially in Tetris and spatial games.

26:59I mean, there's like amazing stuff out there if you know how to choose between the good stuff and the not good stuff. And we can talk about that later. But my kids have whole groups of folks who act out Minecraft even when they're not on the screen. And for my 10-year-old's birthday party, we did a whole Dungeons and Dragons birthday. And we had problems that everyone had to solve and all the kids came. I think I was the dragon master for how you were going to go in a misty room where the floor was slippery and still managed to get the food at the other end of the room. And the kids came up with brilliant solutions to this problem.

27:39Yeah. So they still play. Okay. And so, and with your nine week old, what are you, I mean, just so delicious. But when you're thinking about this new little one, are you noticing a difference? I mean, I guess your family has the benefit of having been exposed to you, but are you noticing a difference in even this last decade? Oh, yes. The last decade has changed so much. As I say, first of all, we're introducing AI. Okay, let's figure out how to deal with that. And there's so much sophistication going on in tech toys, tech games, chips in everything. Let's give you one from the last decade. They put chips in shapes orders.

28:30Now, why would you put chips in shapes orders? What happens is as the kid finds the little triangle and puts the triangle in the right or wrong place, now the shapes order speaks to you or at you and goes, Oh, triangle. Okay, what happens? We studied this. Mother stops saying, wow, look, you found the triangle. See, the triangle has three sides and three angles. No more do the parents get engaged because the toy's talking. So yes, the world has changed. And again, I'm not anti-tech where tech makes a difference, but I am anti-chip in everything. We don't need it. Cardboard boxers are still incredible.

29:16Isn't that amazing? Like we haven't outsmarted development in that way. No, no. Evolution takes years and years to outsmart. So I'm not too worried about that. Like the kids haven't changed, but we've changed. And I will say the last 10 years has also brought about something very troubling. And that is parents have changed. For one, we're hyper. We're hyper that the kids have changed. And no, they have not. They'll be fine. And two, we're on our phones all the time. Every time we do the analytics about how much milk our kid drank, we're on the phone. So basically, we're showing our baby, it's very important to record literally everything that you have done.

30:02I mean, that's what we're doing. And when we do that, our eyes are off the kid and on the phone. And we've studied this pretty extensively now. I think we had the first study out on it, but now there's a lot of them. It's called technofurance, when technology gets in the way. and somehow you have to put that phone down and look into the eyes of another person and have an authentic human-to-human conversation with them. Just one more example. Sometimes I'm out to dinner with my two older ones and there's a television at the restaurant. If my kids are facing the television or even see it out of the corner of their eye, I promise you they will not look at me over dinner.