Learning Curve

Tonight I got to witness a learning moment for a little boy, and I'm not sure I'll ever be the same. I was messing with a bubble-gun when my cousin's 18-month-old son, Coen, came up to see what I was doing.  The thing works by pressing a trigger that turns a fan to blow air through a ring that is supposed to be dipped into soap suds. I didn’t have the suds, what with being inside and all, but even without the bubble juice, this is a pretty cool toy.

So when Coen came to investigate, I showed him how I was pressing the trigger, then I put his fingers on it to let him do it. The fan was aimed at him, so when he got the hang of the trigger button, he got a faceful of air, which made him smile. He worked it over and over again, observing the cause-and-effect relationship between what his fingers did and what his face felt. I swear I could see his mind cataloging the phenomenon and reckoning how it worked.

We did this for a few minutes and then he was distracted by the advent of the Bringers of the Ice Cream. After we’d enjoyed our Graeter’s and messed around with other toys for a while, he picked up the bubble-gun again. I wondered if he’d remember how to work it, and I was impressed to see that he not only remembered, he’d improved on his previous performance! Earlier he’d been using his index and second fingers to push the trigger, but this time he swung the toy around and used his thumb – a much more powerful tool for the job at hand, and at a better angle for getting the air to blow on him. Genius.