The Wonder Approach: Rescuing Children's Innate Desire to Learn

Children of the last twenty years have grown up in an increasingly frenzied and demanding environment, so that on one hand education has been rendered more complicated and on the other, the essentials have been lost from view. In order to ensure their future success, we feel that we must fill our children's schedules with endless activities that cause leisure, spontaneous activity, and the experience of nature, beauty and silence, to fade out of their lives. Childhood has often become a veritable race toward adulthood, which distances children more and more from the natural laws of childhood. A constant stream of loud and flashy stimuli disturbs the only true and sustainable learning that exists in them: that of calmly and quietly discovering the world for themselves and at their own pace, with a sense of wonder that goes beyond mere curiosity for the unknown or interest in novelty.According to the Wonder Approach, learning is a wondrous journey guided by a deep reflection on what the natural laws of childhood require: respect for children's innocence, their pace and rhythms, their sense of mystery, and their thirst for beauty."The Wonder Approach to Learning is a most informed and intelligent article on learning." Psychology TodayAbout the author: Catherine L'Ecuyer, LL.B., MBA, MRes, is Canadian, now living in Barcelona with four children. She holds a law degree from Laval University, has an MBA from IESE Business School, and an Official European Master of Research. In Canada, she worked in commercial litigation at Fasken Martineau and as Senior Council for the telecommunication company Fido; in Spain she has taught university classes and worked as a consultant.The Swiss journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience published her article "The Wonder Approach to Learning," which converted her thesis into a new hypothesis / theory of learning. In 2015, she received the Pajarita Award from the Spanish Association of Toy Manufacturers for "promoting a culture of play in the media," and was invited to speak to the Education Commission of the Congress of Deputies of Spain. She has served as a consultant to the Spanish government regarding the use of digital technology by minors and to the government of the state of Puebla in Mexico concerning preschool reform. The Wonder Approach, initially published in Spain (23 ed.), has been published in eight languages and is available in more than fifteen countries. She has also published Educar en la realidad (7 ed.), on the use of digital media in childhood and adolescence. A recent video interview she did as part of Aprendemos Juntos (BBVA-El Pa s) received over 10 million views and has won the Google YouTube Ads Leaderboard award for being the third most creative advertising videos on YouTube. A sought-after international speaker, she currently collaborates with the Mind-Brain Group of the University of Navarra and is a columnist for El Pa s, one of the most-read newspapers in Spain.