To discover

"You can only discover something which already exists"
(Socrates)

Education XXI, Socrates

HIPPOCRATES: You are right, my dear Socrates, as always. But won't you put aside your method this time and tell me the answer immediately?

SOCRATES: No, my friend, even if I could, I would not do this, and it is for your sake. The knowledge somebody gets without work is almost worthless to him. We understand thoroughly only that which - perhaps with some outside help - we find out ourselves, just as a plant can use only the water which it sucks up from the soil through its own roots.

(from "A socratic dialogue in mathematics" by Alfred Renyi)

Education XX: rewards

Yesterday it was a very hot day. We were going by car to swim in a lake in the mountains. The twins (almost 16 month old now) were in their seats on the back. And suddenly one of them started blowing air into a harmonica.

It was just blowing in and out, but I like the sound and the fact that he was producing it. And both his mother and I started saying "very good", "great" with a very friendly tone of voice. And he stopped "playing" and laughed.

It was clear that he like we praising him, it was a reward. And then I thought that I would like that he likes to play music by itself, not by the reward that it might bring him. And how often we have been educated like this, through reward and punishment. And then we end up doing something not by the thing itself, but because we like the reward.....and that might create a lot of confusion and suffering.