Is Tabula Rasa a Myth?

When I was in college learning about how to teach, I learned about the Tabula Rasa.  John Locke believed that baby’s brains were born with a “blank slate” to be written on by its experiences.  Do childen really start out as a blank slate?

Are they blank?

Are they the sum of their experiences?

Or are student brains more complex than that?

Do students come to our classrooms as blank slates ready to have us write our knowledge onto them?

I say no.

Students have already had life experiences before they come to us.  They already have background knowledge they gained from those experiences.  They already have conceptions and misconceptions of the world.  We just need to assess which concepts are true and which ones missed the point.  Then we need to give more experiences that would prove the misconception incorrect.  Does that make us Mythbusters?  Like the myth of the Tabula Rasa?

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