Modern Day Learning
By Teresa
~ Featured Articles
As
she went away, I decided that we were going to have
to change our plans slightly. We wouldn’t do anything they weren’t
allowed to
do as I’ve found it confuses children when one adult tells them not to
do
something and then another adult does exactly the opposite.
We gave them clear instructions, study first but in
small doses. We divided their studies in small ‘blocks’. They study a
certain
number of pages and we would help them if necessary. The first child
finished
would then have to help the other, without arguing!
The first block didn’t go as we expected, they took
longer than what we thought, and they couldn’t help each other without
fighting. I then
realized why they reacted
like that. It was only the beginning of what they thought a very long
and
boring weekend. They were frustrated as well as unmotivated. We told
them that
after the second block they would have to help us to do our activities.
They
looked even angrier, not only did they have to study their books but
also had
to help us. We didn’t tell them what our activities were and they were
a little
bit curious, especially my nephew. So, they finished the second block
of Maths,
and then we told them we needed their help to do our Wii activities (my
sister
didn’t mention the Wii). They were stunned.
We chose games where they had to keep a track of their
score, and add their scores to the one from the previous game… without
noticing
they were playing and doing maths. They studied in blocks and as they
changed
subjects, we changed the type of game. We played hangman and
Scategories after
they study literacy, Pictionary after Science… By the end of the
weekend they
finished all the “homework” and they actually enjoyed themselves too.
When we took them to my sister’s on the Sunday night;
she was surprised to see them so happy.
“Have they been good? Because if they haven’t, they’re
not getting their videogames back!” she told me. Now, I was the one
surprised;
I thought that the main issue was for them to study (Notice the
difference,
behaving well or studying well to learn).
If you take away something they enjoy and tell them to
sit quiet and don’t do any fun activity until they study, automatically
“study”
becomes an obligation, something big and horrible that prevents them
from having
fun.
I asked her then if she could remember what it was
like when she went to school, did she like it?
“Of course not, no one likes school, you go because
you have to. I remember my days at school as being very boring, and
pointless.
I had to go there and sit for hours. In Primary School I learnt that if
you are
very quiet and behave well, automatically the teacher seems to think
you are
learning, and doesn’t hesitate to tell your parents you are a good
student
(instead of a good child who behaves but doesn’t learn). Then I got to
Secondary School, with the proper exams and even more boring lessons
that were
based purely on the text books. Every now and then I tried to discuss
some
aspect of a subject with the teacher, and got a punishment for
“answering
back”. Then I would try to clear my doubts by asking to the person
sitting next
to me, I also got punished for “disruptive behavior”. Eventually
I gave up, spent most of the
lessons drawing, sitting quietly at the back of the classroom and only
had to study
the night before the exam to pass and get a good report for being “a
good
student”.
By the time she finished, she realized she asked the
wrong question and to the wrong person. She then turned to her children
to check
what they have learnt. They were hesitant to say they played while they
learnt
because they thought that was a bad thing.
It’s easier than we think to look around children,
watch the way they play, the way they learn and use it when teaching
them.
Learning doesn’t have to be a long task that they have to do by
themselves
after extensive explanations. It can be something we do with them, in
small
tasks to keep them focused, using different activities including games
to keep
them motivated.
Children’s education is not something static
that never
changes. There is not a “magic spell” for the perfect student. What
used to
work with children 20 years ago doesn’t necessarily work now, and it is
not
because children nowadays don’t know how to behave or can’t learn
anything. It’s
because as everything else, children’s learning needs to change,
therefore we
also have to revise and update our teaching methodology.
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