Teaching and Learning
Teaching and learning
Learning
First of all, everyone working within the school system, must know what it means to learn.
Simply put, it is that you can do something after the learning that you could not do before the learning.
It is easy to study, and memorize, somethig written in schoolbooks, but to really do what is described in some book, is totally different.
It can be likened with the difference between you reading and understanding the theory about how to shoe a horse, and really showing that you have learned this by simply shoe a horse..
The school is built and arranged for the school, not for the student, therefore the school kills the student’s creativity and eagerness to learn as soon as a child start school.
During all their early years children learned through their built-in abilities to learn, their creativity and eagerness to learn, without anybody telling them that they had to learn, it happened automatically.
Kids therefore, also have an ability to ask questions about everything, they do not need to be told to ask when something is not clear.
Traditional teaching
How school see kids | How kids see school |
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Children can no longer learn the way that feels natural to them, they are forced in to a system which they, quite correct, experiense as forced.
Forced labour was used as punishment for criminals, and is not something sought after, therefore children may be absent from school.
Instead of adapting the school to the students, we punish children for absence from a place that feels like a concentration camp.
This is the school-day for many kids.
Education through public school. as it has functioned and still do, is not a guarantee for success in life. Rather it is a hindrance for
self-developoment and learning.
Benjamin Franklin left school when he was 10 years old, and ended up as the founding father of USA.
Amancio Ortega, the worlds 3rd richest man, left school when he was 13 years old.
These are just two examples, showing that success does not depend on public schools. There are numerous other examples.
The students who succeed in life do not succeed because of the public school but despite it.
Kids must be seen as what they are, they are small people with an enormous eagerness to learn.
They are not criminal individuals who need to be controlled and put on “straight-jackets” to keep them from doing “bad” things.
In the school there are many “bad” things, like not sitting still and listening to the teacher, or question what the school system has decided, or the “truths” the teacher, or the school-book tell, among countless others.
Kids are forced to acquire knowledge at certain times, and under certain circumstances, as the school decides.
The kids’ readiness to receive information is not taken into account, all students MUST be rady to receive information when it is given.
To learn under duress is not natural neither for adults nor kids.
Many kids react defencively against this authoritarian treatment. Be aware that kids learn from, and react on, their surroundings.
As mentioned, the school is arranged the way the authorities have decided, not accoording to the kids, and therefore produce losers.
It is then left to the teachers, or other school personnell, to deal with these “losers” who, very often, may be very aggressive.
Not because they are criminals, they just express their frustration and try to protect themselves, in whatever way.
Teaching arranged for kids
The whole system must be changed so that the student becomes the center of learning.
If the abilities the kids are born with are utilised instead of being depressend, the school-day will be more pleasent and fulfilling for both students and teachers.
Fist of all, any list of school-books must be abolished, books should be in the library, not purchased and put in the student’s backpacks.
The school curriculums contain goals that are often not well formed, but just the same, they can be reached without forced learnng.
The students may be given tasks, based on sub-goals, they have to solve on their own.
The tasks may be adjusted by the students, but the goals of the curriculum must form the basis.
The students are given free hands to find information that can help them solve the tasks, or projects.
The teacher will be an assistent helping the students to find solutions if they “meet the wall” and cannot continue.
The students may not come to a teacher to ask for solution to a problem, instead they may approach a teacher with suggestions of solutions to problems.
In other words the teacher is no longer one who knows everything, but as mentioned, an assistent.
As the students may require assistance at various times, the teachers must be available as and when the student needs it.
The teacher’s, and the student’s, school-day is no longer controlled by the schoolbell but by need.
Many schools, and teachers, will not be able to adjust from a strictly regulated time-scheduled plan to a more flexible one.
The students may be divided into groups of three or four, as deemed fit.
They have to meet at the school every day to report on progress of their projects, and maybe discuss problems with others in the school.
Where the students pick up information to finish the projects is not important, when given free hands they will find the necessary information.
When the students feel a project is done, they present a report, or in other ways proove they have reached the goals, and learned the subjects. That means, show that they can do something after the learning that they could not do before.
The results may surprise many adults, as I experienced, by trying out a teaching system like this.
Proofs of reaching the goals may be very different and contain details we absolutely could not imagine.
Many of you have probably heard about project based learning, but not studied it in dept.
Experiences
All students reached the curriculum’s goals and showed, both through practical executions and by illustrations etc., what they could do after the learning that they could not do before the learning.
A couple of the groups reached goals far beyond the secondary curriculum’s requirements, bordering on engineering curriculum’s requirements.
There was never a problem with absence, actually I got phone calls from parents who wondered what happened with their kids, who earlier didn’t like school, suddenly did school work “all the time”.
They even met up with other students to do schoolwork, even on holidays.
There was also no problem with aggressive behaviour from the students. They were treated as human beings.
I had to leave the school after the one year of test and move abroad due to family issues.
I do not think my work was followed up, probably the teaching went back to the old ways again.
I encourage everyone involved in the schoolsystem to look at this way of teaching, it will give a totally different feeling of achievement, and satisfaction
for both teachers and students.
It is not easy to arrange all this, it will require a lot of extra work and may take quite a lot of time to develop.
Students who have experienced the traditional forced way of teaching may also have difficulties adjusting to the flexible system.
They may feel at loss as they no longer have the school books to show the expected results, among others, and must rediscover their original abilities of
creativity and learning eagernes.
In Conclusion
Therefore we must make the NOW-time interresting for them, not to tell them that, even if they don’t like the work, they will have to do it, the way we decide, in order to get a better life sometime in the future.
If we look at this from an adults perspective, we may wonder how many applicants we would get for a job that told them, if they work hard now, the way we decide,
and at the times we decide, even if they don’t like the job, and do not enjoy, they may get paid in 10-20 years, MAYBE.
In the meantime we will provide for you.
This is how the kids see the realities in the school.
What if a job was advertized stating that applicants could work the way they wanted and enjoyed, and at times they decided, they might even get paid within 10-20 years.
In the mean time we will provide for you.
Would this get more applicants?
Does the present school authorities have child psychologists and child educators employed, who take part in development of learning and teaching plans?
If so, these psychologists and educators should ask to get back the money they have paid for their studies.
I am not a psychologist, but have further education within teaching from a Norwegian university college, and some years experience as teacher and leader in secondary schools and technical college, in addition to teaching children and adults in Norway and Singapore.