Children grasp relational wholes when a concept centers on their own home place

Evidence

Let me give an instance. Not long ago I heard a naturalist speaking to several hundred grade-school children. In the course of his talks he used the word “ecology” several times. When I was a schoolboy we should have called that a hard word. We called any word ending in “ology” a hard word. I realize now that hard words are exactly those that represent things we are not prepared to be interested in. The naturalist had previously explained to these children that the word signified a life community of grasses and trees, of insects and birds, of rodents and reptiles, whose fortunes were bound together in their “home” place. The children were not merely interested, they were fascinated by this idea and its connotations. So the word ecology was an easy word, besides being a rather showy addition to their stock of nouns. But the point is that the concept of this association of living things, replacing a classified list of creatures all going it on their very own, is surely a coherence of remote things achieved while these children are still children. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 339

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the six-principles-as-method reading: the ecology example shows interpretation achieving whole-making (Principle 4) in children by anchoring an abstraction to the familiar ‘home’ place — supporting the ‘Grafting & Growth’ piece’s larger claim that rooted grounding makes abstractions teachable.
• XREF: connects to: Tactile relief models can convey landscape scale, form, and geology to blind visitors — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 699; The experience of home shapes our most fundamental conceptual categories — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1522

Broader Connections

• The experience of home shapes our most fundamental conceptual categories #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1522