Do children really learn faster than adults?

[Chris_Repertoire]

As an begining (adult) pianist and a psychology major I am very interested.

Does anyone have any concrete cases (from your own experience or elsewhere) comparing how fast adults and children learn piano?  Like having an adult and a chlid start, practice around the same amount, and have the same motivation. If you have that who goes further?

I have a-lot of skepticism towards the idea of children learning faster than adults (at least young adults.)  I think all else being equal a child might learn faster - but I think the difference is greatly exaggerated.

The first three or four months I played piano I was intensely frustrated with how slow it was.  I kept imagining how fast I would've learned if I started when I was much younger .. it felt like I was struggling and I wasn't going anywhere.

After I developed more, and more importantly, learned to practice the right way - most of this fear vanished.   I saw steady progression with my playing every week and I realized I could play a-lot of serious music ... and this anxiety about 'starting late' vanished.

Is it that someone who is eight has a more flexible brain than someone who is 21 .... or that someone who is eight has, literally, thousands of hours of practice already logged.

I also realized how important practicing the right way was as I got better.   Could children learn faster than adults because they obey their teachers and practice the way they tell them to - while adults stubbornly fuddle around trying it their own way?

I don't think child prodgidies are evidence that children in general learn faster than adults.  A child prodgidy is born with an exceptional memory ... usually a very exceptional general intellectual ability as well.  "Child prodgidies" who don't go on to play piano or any other musical instrument seem to quickly find another field in which their talents are developed.

This is just a collection of some thoughts I had.  What does everyone else think?

[allchopin]

Is it that someone who is eight has a more flexible brain than someone who is 21 .... or that someone who is eight has, literally, thousands of hours of practice already logged.

I don't think child prodgidies are evidence that children in general learn faster than adults.  A child prodgidy is born with an exceptional memory ...

Why didn't you just title the post 'Nature vs. Nurture' and get it over with?
No, I understand what you are saying, and it is my belief that childern are definitely more adaptable, being that their brains are at the peak of development (actually, more around age 2) and are growing at a rapid rate.  Thus their learning capabilities are stored for more long-term use.  I still remember the first piece I ever played, but I just forgot one I worked on for months last year.

[bernhard]

Yes, I have lots of anedoctal evidence. My general conclusions are very much in agreement with what you said. Here are some more observbations:

1.      Children have great difficulty in learning. Adults have great difficulty in learning.

2.      Children have great facility in learning. Adults have great facility in learning.

3.      The reasons why adults and children have facility /difficulty in learning are very different.

4.      Therefore teaching methods must be tailored to the individuals.

5.      Therefore institutional education will ultimately fail to fulfil its promise.

6.      The alternative – the apprenticeship system – unfortunately depends on finding a good “master”.

7.      So it is actually a miracle that anyone learns anything.

8.      On the other hand, if anything humans are learning machines.So there is really no miracle. Unfortunately the learning machine seem to learn good an bad equally and with the same efficiency.

9.      It is also important to realise that understanding is a composite of knowledge and level of being. That is, your understanding of anything will always be limited by your knowledge (everyone accepts that in Western societies) but also by how developed as human being you are (in the West we are totally oblivious to this concept). This mean that you may have someone with great knowledge, and yet next to no understanding – someone with much information but no power to do anything with it, and on the other extreme, someone highly developed but with no information – a stupid saint – with power to do but no idea of what to do. A true educator must necessarily develop both sides.

10.      No one has ever reached the limits of human learning potential. If there are limits to memory, for instance, all evidence point s that they are pretty close to infinity. Putting it simply, people just die too soon.

11.      Psychological studies in general are deeply flawed. Psychologist in general dislike mathematics, and therefore know nothing of statistics. Experimental planning and statistical analysis of data in psychology are laughable. So most results of psychological “investigation” in this area should be taken with huges amounts of salt. (I hope this does not offend you).

Just some random thoughts.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Swan]

I have and am teaching both young children, teenagers and adults.  They are all individuals who learn and progress in their own way.  Having said that, I'll make a few sweeping statements that should be taken very generally.

Kids haven't developed 'hang ups."  Adults have.  Some of the hang ups I've come across in adults:

• Self-consciousness- they're focusing too much on what I'm thinking about them, rather than concentrating on what they're doing, and the result is they don't learn as quickly as they could
• Because they haven't picked things up quickly (because their focus is elsewhere) they now have to deal with embarrassment because they're now convinced I must think they're stupid - and maybe they shouldn't have lessons, maybe they're too old...  
• Assumptions that younger children get it right the FIRST time and NEVER make mistakes and do EVERYTHING perfect because they've heard and believe that young children learn quicker than adults.
  • Confidence issues from what life has dealt them... Apologising for mistakes, checking that "I'm not wasting your time", thanking me for "putting up with me", "persevering with me", "having patiece."
    
    It's this type of baggage that I think slows some adults down.  I have one man who if he makes the slightest mistake, throws his arms in the air in agony, berates himself severely, tells himself to "GET IT RIGHT".  And then it's up to me to get his focus back on what he's trying to do.  This wastes a LOT of a time and slows his progress.  I've spoken to him about it often and he agrees needs to stop doing this, but it is a habit with him - he does it with everything he does.
    
    I had another adult student who was getting more and more frustrated because she thought she should have been progressing much quicker - play pieces of a much harder level - like grade 8.  She didn't realise and appreciate the skills needed to be able to do this.  She finally got over this hurdle and is now progressing much faster because she's content to practise concepts at an appropriate level first.
    
    I have young childred (around 6/7/8) and a few of my adults ARE progressing much faster than they are.  This age group doesn't have the disciplin or the attention span or the determination (usually) that an adult at an equal playing level has.
    
    When we get up to the 11/12/13 year olds, then I think things start to change - especially if they're the type of student that excells at school, then their progress is more rapid.
    
    I agree very much with what Bernhard said about having the right teaching method for different age groups.
    
    Personality, intelligence, natural ability (and as Bernhard often says, environment) can have more to do with a person's learning and progress more than age.
    
    

[allchopin]

10.      No one has ever reached the limits of human learning potential. If there are limits to memory, for instance, all evidence point s that they are pretty close to infinity. Putting it simply, people just die too soon.

Quite right, but the problem is that as an adult cannot use the memory he/she 'has left' due to stymied learning ability.  If every adult learned as fast as children (especially children learning language around the critical period), we would be buzzing around in flying cars powered by anti-matter thrusters right now.

11.      Psychological studies in general are deeply flawed. Psychologist in general dislike mathematics, and therefore know nothing of statistics. Experimental planning and statistical analysis of data in psychology are laughable. So most results of psychological “investigation” in this area should be taken with huges amounts of salt. (I hope this does not offend you).

What?  Did I read this right...

Psychologists must be very proficient with math in order to perform studies (I'm sure Chris Rep can back me up on this one), everything from calculating standard deviation, linear relationships, permutations, etc.  In fact Hermann Helmholtz was a prominant psychologist as well as mathematician (developed modern theories on sound traversal).  Also, modern technology demands even more from psychologists, regarding biological studies of the brain (EEG, etc).
Though I must agree, observational psychology today is quite flawed, as tests/surveys are easily strewn with biases.

Swan: Those are some good points.  I must agree that as adults mature, they actually are more handicapped by their self-consciousness and doubt.  Children do not have to worry about this nearly as much.  To quote The Matrix: "Ignorance is bliss."

[Saturn]

Quite right, but the problem is that as an adult cannot use the memory he/she 'has left' due to stymied learning ability.  If every adult learned as fast as children (especially children learning language around the critical period), we would be buzzing around in flying cars powered by anti-matter thrusters right now.

Could you elaborate on this?  What do you mean "stymied learning ability"?  How does it get that way?

- Saturn

[faulty_damper]

Maybe that means that adults learning slows to a crawl because there isn't as much that interests them whereas babies would be fascinated with tiled floors!  Adults have already seen most everthing they will ever experience and have formed schemas of the world, a generalized conception of things based on several objects/observations.  Example: when an adult sees a breed of dog that it has never seen before, he can still classify it as a dog because he has formed a schema of what a dog should be from his previous experiences.  A child would not be able to do this because it has not seen many dogs before to form a generalized idea oy a dog.

Adults percieve the world by using these schemas.  If they did not, and had any intelligence, they would stop and attempt to observe everything new that they have never seen before.  This would be a severe waste of time and effort.  Imagine walking into a new building and looking at the tiles, the hardwood, the marble, the colors, the feel, the taste, the smell, and the sound of the floors.  You could spend hours just to experience this new floor.  And you have not even experienced the walls yet!  It is because of these schemas that we ignore the floors and the walls (if it were generic and fell in the idea of the schema) and allows adults to move around efficiently to things less understood.

So with learning, assuming they went to any kind of school institution that teaches perhaps in the worst and least efficient manner... let me rephrase:  Teaches in the most efficient manner but students learn in the least efficient manner, that adults have formed inefficient learning schemas.  Adults then will learn using these inefficient methods and apply them to almost everything new they come across.  You can drink soup with a fork but it will take a very long time as only a few grams with stick to the fork at each dipping.  Is there a better method of drinking soup?  If so, I haven't found one.  I have only learned how to use the "spork" when I was in elementary school.  I still have no idea what the concave bulge was for and instead, just stabbed the soup repeatedly to drink it.

[bernhard]

I totally agree with faulty.

[bernhard]

I totally agree with Swan.

[bernhard]

Quite right, but the problem is that as an adult cannot use the memory he/she 'has left' due to stymied learning ability.  If every adult learned as fast as children (especially children learning language around the critical period), we would be buzzing around in flying cars powered by anti-matter thrusters right now.

Er… Adults do learn language faster than children. A child will take 4 – 5 years to learn his/her native language. I learned English as a second language (as an adult) from scratch in about three months. A child will have a better accent (part of the reason it that children learn by imitiation), but the reason for that is simple: An adult is interested in communication. A perfect accent is not be necessary for that end, so an adult will not be willing to put the extra effort – unless he is a KGB spy or an actor. Or do you really think that it takes more than a couple of weeks/months for Meryl Streep to develop all those accents she is famous for?

Perceptions of children’s learning facilities are highly biased. Anyone who observes a child impartially will realise how difficult it is for them to actually learn stuff. Contrary to popular belief, a teacher’s role is most of the time, not to teach a child, but to keep the child on track. Adults resent being kept on track, so they don’t “learn” as easily – or so it would seem.

And the reason why we are not buzzing around in flying cars has more to do with economic and political interests than with learning capacity.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

What?  Did I read this right...

Psychologists must be very proficient with math in order to perform studies (I'm sure Chris Rep can back me up on this one), everything from calculating standard deviation, linear relationships, permutations, etc.  In fact Hermann Helmholtz was a prominant psychologist as well as mathematician (developed modern theories on sound traversal).  Also, modern technology demands even more from psychologists, regarding biological studies of the brain (EEG, etc).
Though I must agree, observational psychology today is quite flawed, as tests/surveys are easily strewn with biases.

Yes, you read it right.

Psychologists – specially the ones involved in research - should be very proficient, but they are not (with very rare exceptions).

In fact one of the allures of the profession is that it has the aura of science but it does not require serious mathematical knowledge/effort on the part of the student. Just compare the syllabus of a physics course with the syllabus of a Psychology degree. Unless there has been amazing change in the past ten years (last time I was interested enough to look), I do not see any calculus, any numerical analysis, any complex numbers, any chaos theory, any fractal geometry. Usually there is a semester course (“Introduction to statistics” or “Psychological statistics” or something like that) to introduce the very basic concepts, and give the students the general idea that they really need a statistician on their research team.

As for calculating standard deviations, linear relationships, permutations, these are simple operations available on the cheapest calculators, these days. However I have never to this day met a psychologist (not to say that they do not exist – although I have met some particularly celebrated ones) that knew the difference between a standard error and a standard deviation. None of them had even heard of the central limit theorem – without the understanding of which there is no hope of ever being able to apply a statistical test correctly, planning an experiment or of even interpreting the data.

Typically a psychologist doing research will collect data in any way (or according to some procedure that makes sense to him/her), and then will require the services of an statistician who will despair at the psychologist’s request to “analyse” the pile of numbers (which are usually not even collected within the constraints of random sampling, and therefore unusable).

The statistician then has two choices: Tell the psychologist to start all over again and guide him/her through all the steps starting with experiment planning (which by the way is a branch of statistics – not a procedure open to anyone who believes common sense is enough to see one through) and keep holding the psychologist’s hand until they get to data analysis, or try to do something with the chaotic data the psychologist’s present. In these days of publish or perish, guess which option is taken all the time?

What does this have to do with piano? Very simple: I dislike when bad science is used to promote philosophically questionable statements. (“children learn faster”, “There is  window between ages 6 – 8 and if you miss it you will never be as good as someone who has not”. “The best age to start piano lessons is 2 – 3, anyone starting after that can never have a chance” “There is only so much one can memorise” “what one memorises in childhood sticks forever, after that memory capacity goes down hill”). Such limiting statements would be laughable if people would not take them so seriously.

Take you as an example: You have already decided that things you memorise now as an adult are no match for the things you memorised as a child. That single unfounded belief will be your greatest limitation. Trust me. I have met adults with memories that could outdo any child. And any untrained human being for that matter. If there is a limit to human memory, it is not known. No one got even closer yet. But why would you bother training yourself, if you are already convinced that children’s memories are better?

And by the way, Helmholtz was not a psychologist. He was a medical doctor with interests in optical and acoustic physiology. Although he did publish in both the fields of mathematics and physics he never took formal courses in these subjects simply because of financial difficulties – in spite of wanting to be a physicist he had to settle for medicine. Nevertheless physics and mathematics were lifelong passions. I suggest you have a look here for more details:

https://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Helmholtz.html

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Here is some more discussion on the importance of age:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1079968821;start=5

And here is some interesting discussion on how long it will all take:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1080166013;start=6

Best wishes
Bernhard

[allchopin]

Psychologists – specially the ones involved in research - should be very proficient, but they are not

As for if they really ARE or not, well, that is a different story (which requires a case study in itself! I guess the results of THAT would be biased too).   But yes, psycho9logists are supposed to be able to calculate standard error and standared deviation, etc, etc.

Just compare the syllabus of a physics course with the syllabus of a Psychology degree. Unless there has been amazing change in the past ten years (last time I was interested enough to look), I do not see any calculus, any numerical analysis, any complex numbers, any chaos theory, any fractal geometry.

Well, sheesh, no only calculus majors are going to use complex numbers and chaos theory, and that's if they are advancing toward their PHDs.   A psychologist ISNT a physicist, so why should there courses be identical - that is not my point.  

As for calculating standard deviations, linear relationships, permutations, these are simple operations available on the cheapest calculators, these days.

Well I'm sorry you took this literally.  Ok, a calculator can do the math, but the point is that a psycholgist must know the ideas behind these functions.  

Typically a psychologist doing research will collect data in any way (or according to some procedure that makes sense to him/her), and then will require the services of an statistician who will despair at the psychologist’s request to “analyse” the pile of numbers

Possibly- I wouldn't really know for sure, so I'll give you the benfit of the doubt.

I dislike when bad science is used to promote philosophically questionable statements. (“children learn faster”, “There is  window between ages 6 – 8...

Well then you just dislike science.  Because there actually is a window around a certain age (I believe it is ~2, as I mentioned in an earlier post) that we know to the best of our studies where the brain develops at a rapid rate, mor rapid than yours or mine.

“There is only so much one can memorise” “what one memorises in childhood sticks forever, after that memory capacity goes down hill”). Such limiting statements would be laughable if people would not take them so seriously.
Take you as an example: You have already decided that things you memorise now as an adult are no match for the things you memorised as a child. That single unfounded belief will be your greatest limitation. Trust me. I have met adults with memories that could outdo any child. And any untrained human being for that matter. If there is a limit to human memory, it is not known. No one got even closer yet. But why would you bother training yourself, if you are already convinced that children’s memories are better?

No, memory will not 'run out' and I do not believe otherwise.  What I was referring to was my ability to learn the piece so vividly that it was etched into my brain at that young age, whereas later on, the piece did not seep in as well (it was most likely only stored in my short-term memory).

And by the way, Helmholtz was not a psychologist. He was a medical doctor with interests in optical and acoustic physiology.

He was not a psychologist persay, but he spanned the gaps between physics and psychology (closely related in some ways), e.g. auditory studies, light, etc.  He greatly contributed to the field of psychology, to say the least.

Faulty Damp + Saturn: Yes that is basically what I implied, except that rather than adults being less interested in the world around them, they simply don't learn as quickly because of biological factors.  Their neurons 'grids' have already made their vital connections and new inputs now work off of the old (not to mention the hinderances of age and health on the brain's learning caliber - old people typically have less fluid intelligence than younger).  I have no tests of my own but this is what psychologists have discerned and taught to me.

Berny, I'm not done with you yet.
These quotes are both from you.

Er… Adults do learn language faster than children.

I dislike when bad science is used to promote philosophically questionable statements. (“children learn faster”,

Whoa, my contradiction-o-meter is going to town.  Can you explain?

I learned English as a second language (as an adult) from scratch in about three months.

That's very impressive.  However, no basis for serious argument or proof.  Maybe you may missed the basics in that haste, or maybe you heard English words and then had to brute-force interpret them (calculate via algorithms like a mental foreign language dictionary, rather than heuristics such as 'I hear the word and I automatically know it').

A child will have a better accent (part of the reason it that children learn by imitiation)

Not according to this website.
https://learnables.com/learning.html

Or do you really think that it takes more than a couple of weeks/months for Meryl Streep to develop all those accents she is famous for

I was never a fan of Meryl Streep.


Bye for now.

[Swan]

I was never a fan of Meryl Streep.

WELL!! That's the most offensive thing I've read on this forum!  !








Just a joke....

[allchopin]

WELL!! That's the most offensive thing I've read on this forum!  !

Well, she is kinda before my time, so..

[Saturn]

Faulty Damp + Saturn: Yes that is basically what I implied, except that rather than adults being less interested in the world around them, they simply don't learn as quickly because of biological factors.  Their neurons 'grids' have already made their vital connections and new inputs now work off of the old (not to mention the hinderances of age and health on the brain's learning caliber - old people typically have less fluid intelligence than younger).  I have no tests of my own but this is what psychologists have discerned and taught to me.

Okay, don't think I'm being nitpicky, or distrustful (trust is reason's worst enemy) here...

But when you mention "biological factors" or "neuron grids" or anything of that sort, I'm going to expect to see empirical evidence.  I would like to see some of these studies and the conclusions which they have drawn.

Also, I have a question about this:

Well then you just dislike science.  Because there actually is a window around a certain age (I believe it is ~2, as I mentioned in an earlier post) that we know to the best of our studies where the brain develops at a rapid rate, mor rapid than yours or mine.

How do you know that the period of brain development (biologically speaking) has anything to do with the rate or facility of learning?  Is there evidence of a correlation?

- Saturn

[ahmedito]

In my own experience, teaching children the physical movements of playing is a much easier ordeal than with adults. All you have to do with a  6 year old is say... FLOPPY HANDS! and theyll go very limp, totally relaxing their arm and wrist... adults dont. Most of the ones Ive taught just grip and tense and harden! The work with them is getting them to loosen up little by little... so:

Floppy hands in 2 classes vs 6-8 months of trying to make these guys loosen up their muscles???

hmmm...

[allchopin]

I would like to see some of these studies and the conclusions which they have drawn.
How do you know that the period of brain development (biologically speaking) has anything to do with the rate or facility of learning?  Is there evidence of a correlation?

Of course!
Here are some quotes from various websites, the conclusions that some have drawn about this subject:

What we’re learning is that very early in life there are these periods when certain parts of the brain are being wired and that later in life that then these patterns will be very difficult to change. - GERALDINE DAWSON, Psychologist

Recent scientific studies have found that the human brain does much of its development in a child's first three years of life.

Scientists had thought the brain’s wiring was complete at birth. But neurobiologists now believe this crackling noise inside the brains of infants is the sound of some 10 billion nerve cells connecting with each other, as in this animation; they’re making the synapses that promote thought, emotion, and physical movement. Scientists now say the capability of those neural connections depends on whether the young child receives proper stimulation. It’s a scientific confirmation of what seems like common sense. It’s important what the baby sees, what the baby hears...

At around two years, already more like children and less like babies, they begin speaking grammatically correct sentences and their vocabulary undergoes a growth spurt. And by three years, most children can speak in a manner that is essentially adult-like.

Regarding the final passage, in three years, babies have learned to form grammatically correct sentences, understand and interpret words, use the tongue and larynx to form sounds that our environment has made, and pick up emotions from sentences, as well as repeat this all back.  This is an incredible amount of information (so incredible in fact that Chomsky leans toward the nature side of this argument - 'a child surely MUST already have some of this data encoded!').  And thus the argument that I bring to the table is the correllation that If a baby can learn all of this language with such clarity and so quickly, why not music as well?  After all, music is a language.

In my own experience, teaching children the physical movements of playing is a much easier ordeal than with adults. All you have to do with a  6 year old is say... FLOPPY HANDS! and theyll go very limp, totally relaxing their arm and wrist... adults dont. Most of the ones Ive taught just grip and tense and harden! The work with them is getting them to loosen up little by little... so:
Floppy hands in 2 classes vs 6-8 months of trying to make these guys loosen up their muscles

Hmm, this possibly seems to be more like what Swan said about adults' self-consciousness.  Is it that they choose not to relax, or that they subconsciously tense up?

[Swan]

If a baby can learn all of this language with such clarity and so quickly, why not music as well?  After all, music is a language.

I believe this is the case!  (sorry, I don't have any scientific backings, just me thinking about things I've read such as Suzuki's Nurtured by Love)

Many people say of young children who seem to be musically talented, "It's a gift" - presumably by God, or that it's innate talent.   I think it's children like this who have been exposed to music in some form or other from the earliest (womb).   They appear to be talented, whereas in actuallity, it's just that they've been 'learning' a lot younger than some of their contemporaries who seem to be less 'talented/gifted'.  It's just that the adults around them don't realise that the child is actually 'learning' as their mother hums while doing the dishes, or listens to classical or pop or any other type of music with clear melodies. And if there's anyone practising a musical instrument in the house, then I guess babies 'learn' this too.  

This is of course the age old debate about nurture or nature, and I know Chirs Repertoire wasn't asking about this particularly.   So I'll bring it back to the children v's adults.

I'm not entirely convinced that anyone can make such a blanket statement as "Children learn faster than adults.

I'm teaching a 6 year old at the moment.
I'm also teaching a 35 year old who's never had piano lessons before.

Who's learning the fastest?  It's the 35 year old.  The six year old can only play simple melodies, can't sight read fluently.  The 35 year old within only a few months can now sight read very well, play many classical pieces, memorises and composes her own pieces.   She plays with a beautiful expressive touch. The 6 year old doesn't.

If children really do learn faster than adults, then why can't the 6 year old (or the five year old I taught, or the 7 or 8 year olds i'm teaching) do this?

What do others think?

[allchopin]

I believe this is the case!  

What is the case?...

I'm not entirely convinced that anyone can make such a blanket statement as "Children learn faster than adults.

I agree - it's really a broad question that varies too much from child to child...

Who's learning the fastest?  It's the 35 year old.  The six year old can only play simple melodies, can't sight read fluently.  The 35 year old within only a few months can now sight read very well, play many classical pieces, memorises and composes her own pieces.   She plays with a beautiful expressive touch. The 6 year old doesn't.

Who says the child isn't learning?  Just because he/she may not exhibit obvious pianistic growth doesn't mean that he isn't picking up on other, more subtle nuances of your teaching.  Plus, in order to be able to show you that he has learned something, he must be able to actually play the piano, which has more to do with simple physical inability (motor skills) than mental inability.  It's a possibility...

Haven't heard much from Chris - anything to add?  I'd like to hear from a genuine psychologist.  

[Chris_Repertoire]

Thanks everyone - your comments have been helpful

[Daevren]

Psychology is scientific soft, in general. But alot has changed since Freud. There is hard scientific research into the cognitive abilities of the brain.

[Swan]

I believe this is the case!  



What is the case?...

This is the case:

If a baby can learn all of this language with such clarity and so quickly, why not music as well?  After all, music is a language.

... that a baby CAN learn music the way they learn language .... that's why I went on with all that nurturing stuff....

Who says the child isn't learning?

I don't know, who?  Wasn't me.  I said who's learning the FASTEST - and said it was the 35.  Doesn't mean the 6 year old isn't learning, just like the topic isn't "Do children really learn, or do adults really learn?"  They all learn.  Who learns faster?  the 35 year old.  They are both learning, but the 35 year old is learning faster than the 6 year old.

[allchopin]

This is the case:

... that a baby CAN learn music the way they learn language .... that's why I went on with all that nurturing stuff....

Ah.

I said who's learning the FASTEST - and said it was the 35.  Doesn't mean the 6 year old isn't learning, just like the topic isn't "Do children really learn, or do adults really learn?"  They all learn.  Who learns faster?  the 35 year old.  They are both learning, but the 35 year old is learning faster than the 6 year old.

Heh, I got it the first time!
What I really meant was that who says the child isn't actually learning faster?  Of course the child will be learning something.  Even a baby in a plain, blank, white cage away from all human contact will learn something.  
This is probably the longest thread that has ever stayed on topic, eh?

[Swan]

who says the child isn't actually learning faster?

Me.  

[Egghead]

Me.  

that exchange was very funny.

Do we see here a growing consensus that actually adults learn (most things) faster than, say, a six year old?
I certainly learn substantially faster now then when I was six, 8 or 10 (but maybe not at 14!). Reasons for this have been given in many of the previous posts.

However, I begin to wonder whether the "normal" teaching methods used for young kids are always the most efficient ones. How do you teach young kids?

Egghead

[Swan]

How do you teach young kids?

Some thoughts are discussed on this in this recent thread

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1091827437

[Egghead]

Some thoughts are discussed on this in this recent thread

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1091827437

Thankyou, Swan. I am sorry I overlooked this!
Egghead