Chapter 8 - The secret heart of learning

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The secret heart of learning	281

as the norm. The program that's being used to typeset this page, for example. This comes complete with an automatic "spell-checker." When each chapter is finished, the computer program, if asked, automatically scans every word - and questions every possible mistake. The expectation is 100 percent excellence. And because of that expectation - and the system that produces it - nearly all books are printed with perfect spelling. Better still, the computerized spell-checker is a built-in, self-correcting educator. Even poor-spelling authors using it can check mistakes, and see correct or alternate versions instantly on the screen. They expect 100 percent achievement. And because they expect it, and know how to get it, they succeed. They know they're a success by the final results they produce - and not the mistakes they learn on the way. Thus they learn to spell the successful way.
  As Thomas Edison put it when a friend tried to console him when about 10,000 experiments with a storage battery had failed to produce results: "Why, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
  In most of today's school systems, Edison would have been graded a failure. In fact, he had only three months of formal schooling - but became probably the greatest inventor in history, with 1,093 patents to his credit.
  Maybe not all of us can be an Edison. But each warmly-encouraged infant seems to have the same insatiable sense of adventure and exploration that motivates the great inventors and scientists.
  Dr. Thomas Armstrong, author of Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius, talks about the child's "extraordinary" openness to new learning during the preschool years. At two or three, says Armstrong, the average child "explodes" into language and learning.
  The infant learns best in an ideal atmosphere, with affection, warmth, encouragement and support. Where that same attitude continues in school, the same fun and speed of learning continues.
  There are many ways to achieve this for major improvements in learning, as we'll cover later. But more important than all: every positive educational turnaround we've examined around the world starts with self-esteem - or self-image. That esteem is nurtured where a school, like the leading businesses, is also in search of excellence - where every student is encouraged to succeed.
  Says Colin Rose, the British-based entrepreneur who has produced

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