The Science Quiz: Happy Children’s Day

Questions:

1. The philosopher John Locke floated a theory called ______ ____. It held that at birth, the mind of a child was blank and that it was the duty of adults to populate it with the ‘right’ thoughts and ideas. Fill the blanks.

2. A common biological definition of childhood is that it’s the period in a human’s life between infancy and _______. Fill in the blank with the name of a period during which the body undergoes changes that render it capable of sexual reproduction.

3. In the early 19th century, child labour became a major issue in Europe owing to the growing dissonance between the practice and the depictions of childhood in art as a period of simple joys. A notable ‘contributor’ to the opposition movement was X, the British author whose stories described the lives of children living on the streets in awful detail. Name X.

4. India celebrates November 14 as Children’s Day in honour of Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday. Name the social worker who pitched this date to the Indian government as a way to help improve the welfare of underprivileged children in the country.

5. Name the only U.N. member state that has signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child but hasn’t ratified it, mainly because it detracts from certain conservative parenting and punitive practices.

Visual:

Name this painting from the late 18th century that came to be called the “commercial face of childhood” because of its popular depiction of innocence.

Answers:

1. Tabula rasa

2. Puberty

3. Charles Dickens

4. V.M. Kulkarni

5. United States

Visual: The Age of Innocence