The Intellectual Lives of Children

by Susan Engel

A look inside the minds of young children shows how we can better nurture their abilities to think and grow.

Adults easily recognize children’s imagination at work as they play. Yet most of us know little about what really goes on inside their heads as they encounter the problems and complexities of the world around them. In The Intellectual Lives of Children, Susan Engel brings together an extraordinary body of research to explain how toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-aged children think. By understanding the science behind how children observe their world, explain new phenomena, and solve problems, parents and teachers will be better equipped to guide the next generation to become perceptive and insightful thinkers.

The activities that engross kids can seem frivolous, but they can teach us a great deal about cognitive development. A young girl’s bug collection reveals important lessons about how children ask questions and organize information. Watching a young boy scoop mud can illuminate the process of invention. When a child ponders the mystery of death, we witness how children build ideas. But adults shouldn’t just stand around watching. When parents are creative, it can rub off on their children. Engel shows how parents and teachers can stimulate children’s curiosity by presenting them with mysteries to solve.

Unfortunately, in our homes and schools, we too often train children to behave rather than nurture their rich and active minds. This focus is misguided, since it is with their first inquiries and inventions―and the adult world’s response to them―that children lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning and good thinking. Engel offers readers a scientifically based approach that will encourage children’s intellectual growth and set them on the path of inquiry, invention, and ideas.

Genres: Education, Parenting, Nonfiction, Science

240 pages, Hardcover

Published January 5, 2021

About the author

Susan Engel is a developmental psychologist in the Department of Psychology at Williams College and the founder and director of the Williams Program in Teaching. She wrote a column on teaching for "The""New York Times" called "Lessons" and is a cofounder of The Hayground School in Eastern Long Island.

Reviews

[Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was missing a golden thread of narrative. I was never sure how each story fit into the whole. The word that came most to mind was anecdotal. Which isn’t bad, but without the connecting bits was hard to follow or summarize

[Alice Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Susan Engel's work and regularly use The Stories Children Tell with my undergraduate research students. I've also used The Hungry Mind in a senior seminar class. One of the things I appreciate most about Engel is the deep respect she has for the voices of young children - by listening to children talk about their experiences and their understanding of the world in their own words, she recognizes how we can better shape and nurture their own curiosity and intellectual pursuits as well as how much we can learn from them. Her approach to studying children's cognitive development contributes to our understanding that young children are far more competent than Piaget and other researchers have given them credit for. This was not my favorite work of Engel's. While she masterfully incorporates anecdotal stories to complement relevant psychological experiments in her efforts to describe children's thoughts, ideas, and intellectual interests, at times it felt that the writing was meandering and the core theme was lost (especially in the Ideas chapter). I most enjoyed the Inventions chapter.

[Thomas Beard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is at its best when it highlights the author's research with children, showing through anecdotes and examples how children are deeper and, frankly, more human than people give them credit for. I disagree with other reviewers on here: I think the regularly spaced stories do a great job supporting the thread of her thinking.

As a homeschool dad, this gives me a lot of ideas and material to work with as I raise my kids to be deep and critical thinkers. Thinking through questions and problems is a skill, one we would do well to help our children grow.

[Ilya Zverev · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Something to think about next time I visit my nieces and nephews. It seems that it could have been shorter, though. Like many nonfiction books of late, there is a pretty simple idea that gets spread over too many pages.

[Dimitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πολύ ωραίες προτάσεις, ιδέες και σκέψεις για την εκπαίδευση των παιδιών και τις ιδέες τους. Να είναι σίγουρη όμως η συγγραφέας ότι στον σύγχρονο ολοκληρωτικό καπιταλισμό τα παιδιά, η εκπαίδευση και το σχολείο, δεν θα γίνουν ποτέ έτσι όπως περιγράφει στο τελευταίο κεφάλαιο, αν δεν τον ανατρέψουμε!

[Lime Street Labrador · Rating 2 out of 5]

nah

[Stephanie Borges Folarin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m obsessively reading books right now about education. This wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book! Confirmed things I already knew or suspected and got excited about some new ideas! Definitely an interesting read for a parent, teacher or lover of humanities studies.