Essay On Nature And Nurture In Learning

Nature ,the ability to learn from hereditary. Nurture, the ability to learn from the environment. These two ways of Learning have been in debate for hundreds of years. The question is, are we products of nature or nurture. Do we as humans learn from being taught or do we learn from what we inherited ? This question can be answered in many ways starting with how this argument began. In the article "The nature versus nurture debate or controversy" , it spoke of a French philosopher named Renè Descartes. He believed " individual Human Beings, possess certain inborn ideas that underpin our approach to the world". Meaning that we as humans learn how to deal with the world and develop through things that we had Imbedded in us at birth. This 17th century view started everything. Years later, in 1869 , Englishman Sir Francis Galton established his theory on a person 's learning ability which stated that a person grew and learned based on heredity, which Galton called "Nature". Galton conducted many observations to ensure that his theory was correct. In one of Galton 's studies he used twins that were put in different environments to see if their growth and learning was inherited or grown through their environment. His studies later concluded that …show more content…
But we as people change over time as well. For example,in the novel "Ellen Foster" Ellen was proud to be white. Her heritage told her that being white was great. This caused her to see life through a different view. She went through alot in her life shaping the person that she was. She wouldn 't take food from her friend Starletta because she was a colored girl. Her family and environment had taught her that colored people was dirty and nasty. Some were even scared of colored people ,making Ellen think white people were better. She thought this way because her heritage and her environment confirmed that white people were