Tiny Scientists from Birth

"The idea that new babies are empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge of the world around them doesn't sound unreasonable. With their unfocused eyes and wrinkly skin, tiny humans sometimes look more like amoebas than complex beings."

"Yet scientists have built a body of evidence, particularly over the last three decades, that suggests this is patently untrue. 'When kids are born, they're already little scientists exploring the world,' said the filmmaker Estela Renner before a recent screening of her new documentary The Beginning of Life (streaming on Netflix) at the World Bank in Washington, D.C."

Renner, a Brazilian mother of three, spoke with early childhood experts and parents in nine countries, reports The Atlantic. Her film explores "the impact a child's environment in the first few years of life has on not only her physical development, but her cognitive, social, and emotional development, too."

"'I didn’t know that kids were not blank slates,' she said. 'It changed the way I look at babies. If more people recognized that fact, the way communities and policymakers think about and invest in the early years of life might be different.'"

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