The source of programming

How do we acquire programming? In the first instance, you are programmed consciously or, more often, unconsciously, by the people around you. As a child, these people were your family, friends and playmates.

Parents programme children to succeed – and sometimes to fail. Consider a child bringing home a report card from school. English has high marks, but the maths assessment indicates that there is room for improvement. A caring parent wants to congratulate his child on doing well in English and perhaps reassure the child that he is not angry at the maths assessment.

‘Don’t worry, you got good marks in English – and you can’t be good at everything.’

This sort of phrase is commonly heard about many different skills. Unfortunately, although the intentions are good, the parent is programming the child to be poor at maths. Before long the child will be saying to his friends ‘I’m no good at maths,’ because he has heard someone else tell him he is not good at it. How many adults do you know who will happily announce, ‘Don’t ask me to work the bill out, I can’t add up.’ Over a long period of time, these people have programmed themselves to be poor at figures. Constant repetition has reinforced this idea.

The truth? We all have the capacity to do far more mentally than we do. There are people who can manipulate numbers and produce instant answers to calculations that would require ten minutes with a calculator for most of us. We might argue that we could not do this, but the ability is there for all of us – we just don’t use it. Usually, because someone has told us it isn’t possible often enough, we end up believing it.