In the previous article, I began this journey by reflecting on our changing relationship with knowledge, and on how humanity moved from storytelling and books to the internet and artificial intelligence.
But long before schools and books, before curricula, certificates, and classrooms existed, human beings were already learning.
What I find especially fascinating is that this ancient beginning of learning is not as distant from us as we may think. We too begin our journey with knowledge from the moment we are born, with our earliest awareness of family and the environment around us—years before we ever enter a classroom.
Before a child enters school, life has already begun teaching them.
Learning Was Part of Life
In early human societies, there was no separate time called “study time” and another called “life.”
Life itself was the learning environment.
Human beings needed to know how to find food, deal with nature, make tools, protect themselves, and communicate with others. They learned in the simplest and most human way possible: by observing those who knew more, imitating them, trying, failing, and trying again.
Knowledge at that time was not simply information—it was experience that could be used.
People did not learn something because they would later be tested on it. They learned it because they needed it in a real situation.
Perhaps this invites us today to reflect on the distance that sometimes exists between what we learn and what we actually use, and between learning for knowledge itself and learning for life and practical application.
From those early beginnings, several mechanisms emerged that still lie at the heart of learning today:
observation, imitation, experimentation, and practice.
Human beings did not know these terms, and there were no educational theories to explain them.
They were simply… learning.
Society Was the School
In early communities, society itself was the learning environment.
People learned while working, moving, watching, participating, and living—not only in a designated place or at a specific time.
What is interesting is that many of these ancient practices have returned today under modern names: learning by doing, experiential learning, social learning, and project-based learning.
Sometimes we simply give a modern name to something humans have practiced naturally for thousands of years.
The same is true for children.
A child does not wait for the first day of school to begin learning. Long before discovering the classroom, the teacher, or the textbook, family and the surrounding environment have already begun shaping language, behavior, ways of thinking, and even the child’s emotional relationship with knowledge itself.
My First School Before School
I can see this clearly in my own experience.
My mother was very keen that I learn to read and memorize the Quran. Her motivation was simple and deeply rooted in faith; she believed that the Quran would protect me and keep me close to God.
At the time, I did not think of this as an “educational experience.” Looking back today, however, I realize that this early practice was part of my first relationship with words, reading, memorization, and learning.
My father, may he rest in peace, was also always eager to talk with me about different aspects of life. He told stories, discussed ideas with me, and talked to us frequently.
In this way, conversation and storytelling became another source of knowledge.
Even my siblings were part of my learning process without deliberately trying to teach a younger child.
I used to sit beside them while they studied, listen to what they were reading and discussing, and I still remember trying to imitate my older brother’s handwriting simply because I liked the way he wrote.
No one told me at the time that I was practicing “observational learning” or “social learning.”
I was simply watching… imitating… and learning.
Family Does More Than Transfer Knowledge
Perhaps the issue goes much deeper than acquiring information and skills.
The environment in which a child grows up helps shape their psychological and social relationship with learning itself.
It influences how the child feels about questions, mistakes, books, curiosity, discovery, and even the importance of education.
Knowledge may become associated with enjoyment, dialogue, and experimentation—or, on the contrary, with fear, pressure, and obligation.
Years later, when I became a father, I found myself repeating the same idea in a different way.
I used to read stories to my daughter when she was young and made sure that books, pictures, and storytelling were part of her early world.
My goal was not simply for her to memorize a story or learn a particular fact. I wanted books to feel familiar and enjoyable, and for reading to become connected in her mind with imagination, curiosity, and discovery.
That made me realize that what we do with our children before school is not simply preparation for formal education.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, we help shape how they learn and how they feel about learning.
What Happens When the Learning Environment Is Missing?
This is where I believe the responsibility of the family extends far beyond providing food, clothing, and basic needs.
A child also needs someone to talk to them, listen to them, answer their questions, tell them stories, help them understand right from wrong, and give them room to explore and experiment.
But work pressures, difficult life circumstances, family conflict, or simply constant distraction can reduce this space in some homes.
When conversation and participation disappear, the child does not stop learning.
They will continue to learn—but the question becomes: from whom, and from what?
Television, smartphones, or video platforms may become the most present sources in the child’s life. Negative attitudes toward school and education can also take root if the child repeatedly hears them from the people around them.
This creates an important paradox:
The absence of education within the family environment does not mean the absence of learning; it may simply mean that other sources will take over the task of shaping it.
Children naturally observe, imitate, and explore. If we do not provide an environment that helps guide this instinct, the surrounding environment—whatever it may be—will eventually play that role.
That is why, in my view, parenting cannot be separated from education.
Parenting is not only about protecting children and meeting their basic needs. It is also about helping them develop curiosity, dialogue, the confidence to ask questions, a love of knowledge, and trust in their own ability to learn.
The World Changed… The Beginning Did Not
A child born today enters a world completely different from that of early humanity.
Today, a child is surrounded by screens, smartphones, the internet, video, and artificial intelligence, while early humans lived among nature, community, and oral storytelling.
Yet the beginning of the learning journey remains remarkably similar.
A child watches, listens, imitates, experiments, makes mistakes, tries again, and learns from those around them.
These are essentially the same mechanisms humans have relied on since the earliest stages of our relationship with knowledge.
The environment has changed. Knowledge has accumulated. Tools and speed have evolved.
But the fundamental human nature of learning remains.
Before humans learned from devices, books, or platforms, they learned from other human beings and from the world around them.
Storytelling… Memory Before the Book
But what happens when someone wants to pass on an experience to a person who was not there when it happened?
This is where storytelling became essential.
Before writing, what one person discovered—or what a community learned—was passed on through speech, stories, and shared experiences.
A story about a journey, danger, failure, or success was not merely entertainment. It carried experience that could teach someone who had never lived through the event themselves.
Before libraries existed, human memory was the library.
Before books existed, the human being was both the carrier of knowledge and the means through which it was transmitted.
But memory has limits.
Knowledge that depends only on human memory is vulnerable to forgetting, change, and loss. Stories can shift as they pass from one person to another.
As societies grew and experiences, transactions, and knowledge accumulated, memory and storytelling alone were no longer enough.
Humanity needed something that could preserve knowledge outside the mind.
Something that could remain after its owner was gone and reach someone who might never meet them.
And here came one of the most important leaps in the history of human learning:
Human beings found a way to give knowledge a memory that no longer depended solely on the human mind.
This is where the story of writing begins.
With writing, human beings could do more than know, remember, and tell…
They could leave knowledge behind.
And this is where the next stage of our journey begins.