Tom Noddy Quotes

I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period.

I'm a contract computer scientist by trade, but I'm the founder of something called the Tinkering School. It's a summer program which aims to help kids to learn how to build the things that they think of.

We want kids to think that they can think about science. They don't need to just play soccer.

It can no longer be an afterthought in a child's development that the analytical side is not of equal to the creative side. That the creative side can be pushed aside and we just push the analytical side. Especially with the development of a child's brain at the elementary levels.

It's very important to put children in an environment where they can take things apart; where they can break things and then learn to fix them; where they can trust their hands and know their capacity to manipulate objects.

We look at science as something very elite, which only a few people can learn. That's just not true. You just have to start early and give kids a foundation. Kids live up, or down, to expectations.

Music is such an incredible tool for kids in general. They learn discipline; they learn how to express themselves. You learn math. You learn language. It's the ideal teaching tool, and that's why it's mind-boggling when any school superintendent decides that music is something we can kind of do without.

What, of course, we want in a university is for people to learn the skills they're going to need outside the classroom. So, having a system that had more emphasis on inquiry and exploration but also on learning and practising specific skills would fit much better with how we know people learn.

Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from the data and ideas of other scientists. The recent studies show that children also learn in these ways.

It's endless, the amount of things that music touches on that can help kids grow that are very, very practical.

Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific - this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play. But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions.

Education must be aimed at creating a wider imagination in the child, not at suppressing. The child's mind must be set free.

I don't know whether it is important to study science at a young age, though current thinking emphasises the need.

When a child's mind develops and is heading in a certain direction, we murder that mentality, we murder that imagination, by saying, 'Now, that is all well and good, but now sit down and start to study.'

In college, I wanted to be a child psychologist. Acting was just something on the side to make money. And it was fun.

It's definitely important for kids to learn in many different settings.

Inspiring children at an early age is key, and perhaps we need to put technology in a more social context.

We read to our kids at bedtime because we want to have literacy, but what are we doing to make sure kids are equally fascinated by science?

I took my son to an exhibition about inventing things, and he was so inspired he started collecting toilet rolls and empty bottles for his own 'inventions.'

Research has shown that children who play often both solitarily and socially become more creative and imaginative than those whose exposure to play and toys is limited.

Children are just little scientists.

When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him. Let us take the child out to show him real things instead of making objects which represent ideas and closing them up in cupboards.

Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds, capable of discovery from the preschool age on, throughout life?

Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning.

Teaching how to think is better than lecturing how to do it.