Indeed. Silly anyway. I think we can safely way that your confidence about a student is more a reflection of your teaching skill than anything. Certainly not their age.
I think it has something to do with the difference in the way that young children learn things. Similar to the way the language you learn in childhood is the language you think in. Later, you can learn a language quite fluently, but for most people there is always an element of translation back into the primary language.
The theory would be that only a child could learn to play piano as if it was their native tongue, all the rest can only strive for fluency. But I'm no psychologist (to say the least.)
I found an old reference in Newsweek, that journal of musical and psychological expertise, that said that the "window for learning music" is from 3 to 10, but found no sign of the primary reference.
Personally, I tried this and it didn't stick. Like most 6 year olds, I had better things to do than practice the piano. Now all I can play on the piano is Jingle Bells. :(
I agree, that's probably where the idea that somone can be too old to learn something came from. I believe that if you keep your brain exercised you can learn new stuff just fine. You may have to re-learn learning, so to speak, if you're not in practice, but I firmly believe it can be done. When I first started playing the horn, for example, I didn't understand practice, I didn't know how to pay attention to what I was having trouble with and pinpoint the aspect that needed work, and my brain wasn't used to retention of the the type you need to really internalize information. I just didn't know learning. Now, I know it, at least better than I did a few (8, maybe) years ago.
Now I'm not saying there isn't a difference in the way a young child learns. There sure is; they pick up language and all kinds of other things like so much spare change from the ground. I'm saying that an older person can learn how to learn with their changed brain function. Something like when a boy's voice changes and cracks for a while until he learns how to talk with his heavier vocal chords.
I want to touch on language learning for a moment as well. I think practice plays a big role in it. I mean, think about it. When you learned your native tongue, you used it for everything as you learned it. You thought in it, you heard it, you mumbled to yourself in it, and you practiced making the sounds. How many people do that when they learn a new language? I'm sure most people practice the sounds and listene to as much as they can of the new language. Do they attempt to think in it and mumble to themselves in it? 'Cause I think that's the key to mastery. You mentally immerse youself so that stuff pops out at appropriate times without any thought beforehand. Just a sort of a reflex. Most (all?) English speakers don't have any clear meaning in mind when they say to a friend, "What's up?" It's just a sort of fuzzy idea that pops out. You'd learn a new phrase pretty easily if one became popular, and it would have just the same meaning to you. You'd think the fuzzy idea, and the new phrase would pop out. Now, all you need to do is learn a phrase in you second language for each fuzzy idea that might float through your little brain, and you're set! I'd say that's what you do when you're small and learn your native language. You do it that way because you learned it that way when you were small. That's the only way you know to learn language, because fuzzy ideas are all you have to associate phrases with. Small children are slightly incoherent because they don't have a complete phrase to fuzzy idea translation table yet. It takes years for them to build one. I don't see why you can't do it again after learning to do it with your changed adult brain. I'm not exactly the most experienced person in this area, although I do have a little first hand knowledge. We'll see what I say in a few years, hmmm?
EDIT: The reason, I'd say, that people don't automatically learn a new language using fuzzy idea association, is that it's easier, at first, to do it by translation. In fact, it's almost impossible not to. If I tell you that the German word grüne, for example, means green, you'll automatically associate it with the word green. Because green is a word you know, already linked with an idea, and how the heck are you going to remember what I just told you but by equating it with the word you already know. The trick is to approach a new language as you'd approach a new slang term. If my new acquaintance asks me the question "Where you stay at?" (a phrase I didn't hear until '02 or so) , I don't do any translation. It goes direct to fuzzy idea, just like "where do you live" would. This despite the fact that I learned it later in life. If pulling on your ears and honking came to mean "bring me the phone", you can be sure I wouldn't be translating it into words. I'd just go get the phone (or refuse to, as fate led me). Anyone who keeps up with the current lingo or adds to thier vocabulary is doing just what they'd be doing when they learn another language. There's less to learn, but it's the same.
YAY, ANOTHER EDIT: And the reason that you learn new words with fuzzy idea association, like, say, verisimilitude, is because there is no word you can translate it to. Translation is unfeasable. Nothing else captures the exact sense of the word just right. The phrase "believeabilty, primarily in a literary work, which leads to a sense of reality and the engagement of th reader" is just too long, so verisimilitude it is. It's also the way that foriegn words get assimilated into a language. Learning a whole language is just the same, but on a larger scale, plus a bunch of pesky grammatical rules.
I played brass as a kid (8-10) and got bored and gave up. It is a massive regret now in my adult life (I'm 31 now), but I wonder what would have happened if I had been made to stick with it. I think maybe I would have become very proficient (I had the potential apparently), but probably would have lost any passion for it, as it would have bcome a chore, or maybe resented it.
I do know that the short time I played as a kid gave me a good grounding that I was able to call upon when making the decision to pick up and learn the guitar a year or so ago. The whole concept of notation, which, lets face it is an incredibly abstract thing to the uninitiated, makes sense to me. I only have a basic recollection of the fundamentals, but it really helps. I also have the regret fuelling me on, and the experience of knowing that I have to be cr*p at it for a long time to become any good. I think that my passion for music as an adult will give me an advantage over my increased learning ability I had as a child.
As for the original post, I got the feeling that he wants his kids to play more that they may want to, which is dangerous territory (as already mentioned by others in this thread). The trick is to get your kids to want to play. Expose them to as much music as possible, let them see you play, and let them see you love it. I was lucky when I was a child, as there was always music on in the house when I was growing up (I had three older brothers into rock and pop (this was in the seventies) and parents who were into the easier MOR and classical side of things, so I got a good spread.
And make damn sure that your kids don't grow up thinking that music is limited to whatever is in the charts that particular week - they will likely grow up to think that music is some disposable thing that doesn't inspire and.....
.......sorry, that's an entirely different subject!
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