Mothers as teachers
Mums are Mums. Whether human, bear, chicken or pig - a mother nurtures, protects and teaches her young to function and survive in the world. From first steps to survival skills, animal moms teach their babies the same lessons as human moms. Seals learn how to swim by riding on their mothers' backs. Lion cubs learn to hunt, baby bears learn what berries they can eat and how to snatch fish out of streams. All mothers teach their young to be independent, productive adults who support themselves.
A teacher is one who modifies his behavior in the presence of young ones even at a cost to himself, in order to set examples that can be emulated. True teaching always involves live interaction between teacher and pupil. Keeping this definition in mind, it has been found that human mothers aren't the only species who spend time teaching children.
As pups grow older the mothers reduce the frequency with which they killed or disabled the prey, introducing them to live prey. Like good teachers, they monitor pups after they provide food. If the pups are reluctant to handle prey, the older meerkats nudge the item towards them. Additionally, if the prey wanders off, older meerkats retrieve it for the pup till it's eaten.
The Cheetah brings back small live antelopes to the cubs so they can learn to chase and catch them. Older cheetah cubs are taken hunting by their mother and permitted to watch in order to learn the tactics which they practice in play.
Young creatures living by the sea need to learn how to fish. Seals, sea lions and polar bears dive into water, come up with live fish and release them in front of their young. The young learn how to grab the prey before it can escape and they soon become adept at fishing.
Otters eat while floating on their backs. They dive underwater to find shellfish then come up to the surface to eat it. They place a rock on their stomach and crack the shellfish against the rock to open it. This technique is taught to young otters by their mothers who do it repeatedly until the cubs learn.
Mother whales teach babies the best places in the vast ocean to find food. Whales have to travel huge distances to consume small prey and each mother had a special place which then became her calf's.
Dolphins display many human teaching innovations. These include making pointing movements towards objects with their snouts and repeating lessons. While capturing prey in front of their calves, mothers stretch out the chase eight times longer on average, repeatedly capturing, letting go and recapturing the same victim—to demonstrate techniques.
Elephants have very long childhoods and their mothers are known to be the best teachers of all species.Birds teach chicks songs by repeating them till the fledgling learns them. Flying is also taught with clumsy chicks being picked up and made to do it again.A hen teaches her babies to 'hunt' by waddling through tall marsh grass and sticking her beak into fiddler crab holes. Female foxes teach their children how to forage for earthworms.
Just as human mothers teach children how to hold spoons, Chimpanzees show their young how to use twigs as tools to poke into termite hills to and eat them.
What fun it would be if our mothers could have taught us how to fear conflict, greed and jealousy.
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