As Children Learn...

          After commenting on another student's blog; where she talked about her memories of learning as a school child, I decided to expand my comments further in the form of my own blog. I began my comments to her with my agreement on her position that schools have been trying to make a change in the way children are taught. But I also agree that there are multiple challenges and difficulties to making a successful transition. The public school system still has a long way to go in its education of our children.
          As children, we learn from an early age through play. In fact, in the field of child studies, play is seen as a child's work. We know that in our work circles, we are at our best when we feel productive and achieve expected results. This is no different for a child who, through their play, is pleased when the sand castle is finally built or when they have won the track and field race. Yet, educators fail to acknowledge the importance of this process in children.
          Let's use an example of the workplace again. Suppose you were hired to wash dishes in a hotel kitchen. On your first day of work your boss or trainer will take the time to help you familiarize yourself with your new role. They will give you a tour of your work space show you where everything is that you will need to do your job. Then you are given pages of forms to fill out, documents to read, and policies to familiarize yourself with.
          After spending a whole day as a passive observer, taking in all of the information that was being deposited to your brain you are now pumped and ready to put all of that training into practice. But the next day, instead of getting your hands in, you are required to watch work videos of do's and dont's; fire safety; workplace hazard training; use of the machines and so on. Moe passive learning where the information is being deposited, but you don't receive the opportunity to contribute anything back. I think you understand where I'm going with this.
          For the remainder of that week, you have pretty much taken in all you possibly can about your role, what it will look like, how to handle situations as they arise, and procedures for safety. However, you still have yet to run the industrial dishwasher. You still have yet to discover which settings will work for you, and what your personal speed will be in clearing one large load for the next. Everything is still nestled in your head, but none of it has gained any real world value.
          Finally, the following week, you get to put your sills into practice. But on that day, there was a plane mishap and the rerouted passengers were being put up in your hotel for the night. All of a sudden, the dining room immediately filled up with unexpected patrons. You discover that you are not fast or efficient enough to keep up with the demand. You are not equipped to handle the overheating of the dishwasher from over use. You didn't realize the difficulty in transferring the clean dishes all the way across the kitchen without making multiple trips. You feel inadequate, ill-prepared and unproductive.
          This is what we are doing to our school children. We are depositing massive amounts of information into their brains. Their success is measured by their ability to memorize the information. They are rarely given the opportunity to put their skills into any hands on, tangible practice. Therefore, when the opportunity presents itself, our children are ill-prepared to apply this information to real world practice.
         Also problematic is the fact that classrooms are not inclusive. The diverse ways in which our children learn are still not taken into account during curriculum planning. Still needed are safe spaces conducive to the expression of free thought, the ability to challenge the learning, and the opportunity to expand the imagination. I also worry about the children who continue to fall through the cracks. The ones who have problems concentrating, or the ones whose behavioral issues become the main focus and stumbling block to their learning. Having four children of my own going through the school system, I can say that I have seen minimal progression toward inclusiveness and change. In thinking about it, perhaps its more of an acknowledgement that change is needed rather than actual change. Either way, I think we still have a very very long way to go.