Once again I was amazed how what seemed so difficult and hard to understand to me was so simple for that child.
Chana Weisberg, whose writings I thoroughly enjoy, asked the same question. Her 10-year-old son, who was her high tech guru, had gone off to school and had been replaced by her 12-year-old daughter. Why, Chana asked, are children so much better with apps, electronic toys and computers than their adult counterparts? Why are four-year-olds who cannot tie their shoes yet better at gadgets than adults?
Psychologist Alison Gopnik, who led a study on this subject at the University of California, thinks it is because children approach problem solving differently than adults. Children try a variety of novel ideas and unusual strategies. According to Gopnik, exploratory learning comes naturally to young children. Adults, on the other hand, jump on the first and most obvious solution and doggedly stick to it, even if it is not working.
When approaching problem solving, adults rely on their ingrained way of doing things, whether it is successful or not. Children, on the other hand, have much more fluid and flexible thinking and are far more willing to explore an unlikely hypothesis. In fact, the younger the child, the more flexible the thinking.
As adults, we tend to get stuck with the familiar, afraid to make necessary changes outside our comfort zone. We approach our relationships by dancing the same steps and reacting instinctively, even if it has limited our past, even if it has intensified the conflicts of the past.
As we approach the challenge of shaping our future and solving our problems, we confront our options using the same tried and true methods, even if these solved nothing and left us truly stuck in the mud. We may be afraid to leave our old patterns because it is, in fact, all we know.
Congregation Beth Shalom must strive to become a Holy Congregation. Holiness means constantly climbing and reaching higher. We cannot allow our lives and our congregation’s life to become settled in stagnation. At every stage we need to explore new opportunities for growth. We need to become our community’s 10-year-olds – to approach our future with open-minded curiosity. Only then can we face our challenges effectively as Jews and define our future as a holy community.
B’Shalom
Rabbi Stanley Halpern