PDF Summary:The Gardener and the Carpenter, by Alison Gopnik

Do you often think about what you need to do to turn your child into a well-adjusted, successful adult? If so, you may be acting as a carpenter parent—a parent who adheres rigidly to the blueprint for raising a “successful child”—instead of a gardener parent—a parent who nurtures the innate interests and talents of their child. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, Alison Gopnik explains that the goal of raising and caring for children should be to allow them to blossom into their unique selves and that parenting should not be a form of work but rather an act of love.

Gopnik is a professor of psychology, affiliate professor of philosophy, and author of multiple books on how to be a good parent. In our guide, we’ll explore the flaws in the current parenting model, how children naturally learn and grow, and how the schooling model also fails to effectively support children’s learning. We’ll add advice from other child-care experts, contextualize Gopnik’s ideas in psychology, and add research and statistics that support or contradict Gopnik’s theories.

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Overimitation

However, there are times when children will imitate unnecessary steps—which Gopnik refers to as overimitation. If they’re learning from someone who seems to be an expert—for example, someone who says “I know how this object works, let me show you,” versus “I don’t know how this object works, let’s figure it out”—they’ll imitate unnecessary steps as well. They also tend to experiment less when being taught by an “expert,” so they’re likely to come up with fewer alternative ways of doing things.

(Shortform note: Some psychologists don't object to a child's tendency to imitate unnecessary steps, arguing that such "overimitation" is a legitimate part of the learning process. A child can't know which steps are unneeded until they've gone through all the steps and seen which brought about the desired outcome. This process helps them learn about cause and effect. Some also note that a child's tendency to experiment less might be simply because when shown a process by an expert, that process typically leads to the desired outcome immediately, reducing the need for experimentation—which is not necessarily detrimental to the learning process.)

Probability

Gopnik’s research suggests that children will even take probability into account at ages when they’re too young to formally understand what probability is. Gopnik conducted a study in which children were shown a red and a blue block, and a machine that would play music when activated by one of the blocks. They visually demonstrated to the children that the blue block activated the machine more frequently than the red block and then asked the children if they could activate the machine. Children as young as two years old chose the blue block consistently, showing that they can use patterns and statistics to make predictions even without the ability to understand basic math.

(Shortform note: Additional research suggests that the age at which children can take probability into account is as young as six months as opposed to two years. It shows that babies pay more attention to extremely unlikely things (625 times less likely than the alternative) as opposed to things that are only slightly less likely (9 times less likely than the alternative), suggesting that babies can instinctively understand when events might be more or less likely to happen.)

Learning Through Testimony

While almost all animals learn through observation, Gopnik argues that humans are unique in their ability to learn through language. We can explain things to each other orally, and as we grow older we can recognize and decode signs and symbols in print to understand their meaning (in short, we can read).

Because of this, talking and reading to children is hugely important to their development, and Gopnik notes it as one of the few genuinely effective ways caregivers should consciously teach children because it creates an environment that facilitates growth and learning. However, in keeping with the gardener model, making a deliberate plan about how you’ll use language to teach a child isn’t likely to have much effect because you can’t control how they process and interpret that information. You can only offer it to them so they can use it to grow, like plants in a garden.

How Reading and Talking Help Your Child

Gopnik doesn’t address the specific benefits of talking and reading to children, but research suggests that talking to children increases their language processing skills and ability to learn new words. Reading to children helps expose them to words and language they wouldn’t normally hear from parents and caregivers, further expanding their language capabilities.

Additionally, parents can create the opportunity for a child to pick up language skills by fostering an environment in which kids feel included, like by talking to them face-to-face (which means joining them at their physical level), using gestures and vocal inflections, and encouraging them to respond once they’re old enough to do so (meaning a conversation is more beneficial than simply talking at children).

Whose Testimony Do Children Believe?

Gopnik describes several studies that explore how young children assign credibility to testimony. Children are likely to believe what they’re told from a young age, but sometimes they’re told conflicting information by different people, and which person they trust often depends on their relationship with that person. It also depends on the quality of that relationship. Studies done on four-year olds suggest that children often believe relatives like their mother over strangers, but this can vary depending on the type of attachment they have to their mother.

Attachment theory describes three types of attachment based on experiments that briefly separate infants from their mothers to see their reactions. Secure babies get upset in their mothers’ absence and are happy when she comes back. Avoidant babies behave as if they don’t care when their mother leaves or returns, but measuring their heart rates shows that they’re very upset. Anxious babies are upset when the mother leaves and continue to be upset when she returns. In cases where the mother and the stranger are equally likely to be correct, children with a secure attachment are more likely to believe their mother over a stranger, but children with an avoidant attachment are equally likely to believe their mother or a stranger.

Another experiment tested how much children believe answers that are likely to be wrong. Children were shown an image of a fish-bird hybrid that mostly looked like a bird. The mothers in the experiment called the animal a fish and the strangers called it a bird (which was more likely to be correct because it more closely resembled a bird). In cases where the stranger gives information that’s more likely to be correct, both secure and avoidant children were more likely to believe the stranger, but anxious children tended to believe their mother even when she was more likely to be wrong.

How Attachment Styles Affect Trust and Criticisms of Attachment Theory

Experts suggest that attachment styles relate closely to how much a child feels they can rely on their parent. An avoidant child doesn’t feel they can rely on their parent to meet their needs—including their need for information—so they’re not inclined to trust what the parent tells them because they don’t believe it’s more reliable than what a stranger says. Anxious children, on the other hand, are overly reliant on the parent, to the point that their independence and curiosity are hindered—meaning they’ll believe their parent implicitly rather than using their own reasoning to determine an answer.

Experts suspect anxious attachment styles may be the result of inconsistent parenting, which causes children to be confused about when they can rely on their parent to meet their needs. This confusion likely leads to over-reliance (and misplaced trust) as babies seek excessive reassurance to relieve their insecurity.

However, attachment theory has faced a great deal of criticism since its inception. It was established to explain why some children grew up to be more successful and have better mental health than others, but critics point out that research into attachment doesn’t support the claim that secure attachment improves these outcomes in adulthood. They also note that it fails to take into account factors such as a child’s temperament, socioeconomic status, and cultural differences, all of which affected children’s behavior as assessed in attachment studies.

Others suggest that attachment theory is politically biased toward the conservative—that it places an undue burden on mothers for the development of their child’s attachment style, and that it was used in the 1960s to place a social stigma on women entering the workforce.

Based on these criticisms, Gopnik’s theories on what affects a child’s belief in different people’s testimony may be explained by factors other than attachment styles.

Children Pay Attention to Authority and Consensus

Children also pay attention to things like confidence and expertise, particularly as they grow older. At just three years old, children are more likely to believe people who speak confidently, and by five they can understand specialization of knowledge—they’re more likely to believe a doctor talking about medicine than to believe a layperson, for example.

(Shortform note: Confidence and expertise aren’t the only factors children take into account when deciding whether to believe someone’s testimony or not. Research also shows that children are more likely to believe someone who’s nice than someone who’s mean, even if the nice person has no expertise on the subject.)

They also tend to follow consensus and are more likely to believe something if a majority of people say it. They may also conform to a majority even when the majority is wrong. In studies done on children aged three to four, subjects were shown three lines and asked to pick the longest one. Kids would give a correct answer even if they saw an adult pick the wrong one, but if three adults picked the wrong one then about 25% of the children also picked the wrong one.

(Shortform note: This study was a variation of Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments. These experiments demonstrated that adults are also likely to conform to a group’s incorrect answers, possibly at an even higher rate than children: In a series of trials, close to 75% of adults in the study conformed to the group’s incorrect answers at least once. When asked why they gave answers they knew were wrong, many participants stated that they didn’t want to be ridiculed by other members of the group.)

Children Question Everything

Children also question constantly—as any parent can attest—and they’ll often continue to follow a line of questioning by asking for the reason behind each answer. Gopnik asserts that children don’t do this to be annoying or get attention: They genuinely want to know—specifically, they want to understand the causality of events, and each explanation helps them build their understanding of the world. While it may be frustrating at times, honestly and adequately answering children’s “why” questions helps them grow and learn.

(Shortform note: Psychologists say answering a child’s “why” questions validates their curiosity, which, as Gopnik states, helps them learn more. They also suggest that “why” questions give parents the chance to model decision-making skills and thought processes for their children to help them better understand how to solve problems and make good choices. However, some experts recommend encouraging children to ask “how” or “what” questions instead of “why” questions when speaking with their friends to avoid appearing judgmental.)

Play: A Natural Learning Mechanism

Children are constantly learning by watching and listening, but they also learn by doing—or playing.

According to Gopnik, biologists define play as having the following five characteristics: 1) Play is not work, 2) Play is fun, 3) Play is voluntary, 4) Play requires a safe and secure environment, and 5) Play relies on a pattern that includes repetition and variation. Because it’s child-directed, play is one of the most important ways that children guide their own development, which means it’s incompatible with carpenter parenting—if you try to force a child to play, direct how they play, or control the outcome of their play, it’s no longer play by definition. Instead, we should create environments that allow children to play, thereby supporting their natural growth.

Not All Play Is Identical

Play doesn’t look the same for all children. For example, autistic children often engage in parallel play—or playing near other children without playing with them—which can seem solitary and asocial. However, autistic children often socialize differently than non-autistic children, and parallel play between autistic children can be much more social than it appears from a neurotypical perspective. Autistic children also tend to engage in seemingly meaningless activities like lining up toys or opening and closing a door.

Parents may feel the urge to alter the way autistic children play so it’s more “appropriate,” but deliberately changing the way a child plays means it no longer fits the definition of “play.” Instead, parents should encourage and participate in their children’s unique modes of play.

While many animal species play in different ways, such as playing with objects or play-fighting with each other, human children may be the only species that plays by pretending. Children begin pretending at just one-year old. Contrary to what many believe, children don’t have trouble distinguishing between fact and fiction—they know what they’re pretending isn’t real. They do it to learn and have fun.

Gopnik suggests that pretending is a way for children to practice hypothetical or counterfactual thinking, which is the ability to imagine possibilities beyond what is currently real. This is the skill that allows us to change both our thinking and the world itself because it lets us realize that our current knowledge or way of thinking could be wrong and imagine how things could be different.

How Important Is Pretend Play Really?

Some experts contend that pretend play isn’t as important to children’s development as once thought, and they note methodological issues in studies about pretend play—for example, does pretend play really make a child more creative, or are creative children more likely to pretend in the first place?

Others suggest that pretend play denies children the opportunity to gain real-world experiences, and they’ve conducted studies that suggest children over age three prefer doing things for real over playing pretend. This, as well as the belief that young children process and relate more easily to concrete rather than abstract things, underlies the Montessori approach to child-rearing, which encourages imagination as a creative connection to reality rather than as an end in itself—this approach fosters the practice of counterfactual thinking Gopnik discusses.

Reading fiction can also assist in counterfactual thinking and has some of the same benefits as pretending. Both activities allow children to take on the perspectives of others, and the benefits of reading don’t end in childhood. Adults who read a lot of fiction—particularly literary fiction—are more empathetic and have a better understanding of others’ perspectives than people who don’t read as much fiction.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that reading fiction can actually change your personality. Reading literature puts you in a state of greater openness to personality change, and it appears to enhance traits such as empathy and altruism. The type of fiction you read may affect its impact on you as well: It seems that romance novels are the genre most likely to increase your empathy (with science fiction being the least likely).)

Older Children: Carpenter Schooling

While much of Gopnik’s focus is on very young children, she also addresses how the carpenter model continues to shape child care as children grow older and how that reinforces the carpenter parenting model. As children move past the stages of early childhood, their learning begins to center more around goals, such as developing skills that will help them succeed as adults. Gopnik notes that this presents an unavoidable contradiction in parenting—while we shouldn’t design our child care around preparing children to be adults, it’s also necessary that we teach them the skills they need to be adults. She argues that the best way to do this is to tap into children’s natural learning abilities.

(Shortform note: While Gopnik seems to view the process of preparing your kids for the real world to be at odds with letting your kids explore their natural interests, that may not be the case: Children appear to voluntarily practice skills for adulthood as young as age six. If children know what’s expected of them in the future, they willingly prepare themselves to meet those expectations. Engaging children’s natural learning abilities in preparing them for adulthood could be as simple as talking to children about their future goals and how to reach those goals.)

Prior to industrialization, the school system we use today didn’t exist. Instead, children’s education came largely from their caregivers and through apprenticeships. Children as young as six would enter into apprenticeships where they would learn and master the skills required for a certain occupation, using the methods of observation, imitation, and testimony to become adept at skills that would help them as adults. While this is still goal-directed learning and had its flaws, it tapped into children’s individual abilities and natural inclinations to observe and learn from experts through the process of trial and error.

(Shortform note: Some cultures still employ some version of the apprenticeship model. Students in Switzerland have the opportunity to train through an apprenticeship that provides them with an income while supplementing their training with a few days of in-school learning. Experts suggest that the skills they learn from apprenticeships will help them in their general lives and that they still have the option later of choosing a different path. Still, there are concerns that children shouldn’t choose a career path at such a young age, in part because their identities are still developing, and thus the apprenticeship they choose might not build upon their innate abilities in the way that Gopnik describes.)

With industrialization came a shift from apprenticeship learning to schooling. Where apprenticeships focused on giving children unique, specialized skills, schools were intended to give all children a universal set of skills for the modern world. This led to a greater and greater emphasis on standardization, which is intended to create equal opportunities for all children, but in reality often ignores children’s unique individual learning styles in favor of uniformity. Because school success is so tied to success as an adult, the carpenter schooling model reinforces the carpenter parenting model, as parents focus their efforts on making sure their children are good students instead of giving them supportive environments.

Teaching the Right Skills and Parent Collaboration

The skills taught in standardized education systems are useful but limited and don’t cover all the different skills needed in adulthood. Standardized education teaches things like critical thinking, reading comprehension, and test-taking skills, but it often neglects important functioning skills like response inhibition, emotional control, and task initiation—skills that may have been covered in apprenticeships.

To prepare their children to succeed in school, parents may also focus on testing skills at the expense of other functioning skills, thereby falling into the carpenter model trap. Research shows that parents’ engagement in children’s education correlates with greater student success. But it’s much more effective when approached as a parent-educator partnership rather than as a closed system with standardized mandates that parents have to follow without the ability to give their own input.

The carpenter schooling model, like the carpenter parenting model, views variations as flaws—or even diseases. Children who don’t fit neatly into the schooling model’s mold are often given diagnoses of conditions such as ADHD, and because the skills required for school success are not skills that come naturally to most children, such diagnoses are very widespread. We then often drug those children to make them fit the mold when we should be adjusting our schooling model to fit our children and their individual needs.

(Shortform note: Gopnik implies that a diagnosis of ADHD is the result of not fitting into the carpenter schooling model, which suggests that it’s a social construct based on our societal structure. Many scientists would counter that ADHD is a neurobiological condition that has existed throughout human history, long before today’s schooling model came into existence. Additionally, research indicates that ADHD medication is an effective treatment for the majority of children with the condition, and, contrary to what many believe, ADHD medication actually lowers the risk of drug abuse in people who have ADHD.)

Gopnik suggests that we view schools as a place for children to grow and flourish, thereby encouraging individuality and discovery. Instead of assessing schools based on test scores, she explains, we should assess them based on observations of classrooms and on how well teachers respond to students’ individual needs and differences.

How Effective Are Classroom Observations?

Gopnik’s recommendations for assessing schools and teachers—in combination with student test scores—are already used for assessing teacher effectiveness in public schools, and these assessments are often used to reward teachers deemed to be effective or punish or remove those deemed to be ineffective. Teacher effectiveness is shown to be the number one determinant of a school’s impact on student achievement.

However, research doesn’t support the idea that these evaluations have an impact on teacher effectiveness and instead shows that the location of a school (which heavily influences school funding through property taxes) and the supportiveness of a school environment toward its teachers (for example, having school leadership that encourages teachers to learn independently and providing teachers with trusting mentors) are better predictors of teacher (and thus school) effectiveness.