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Nurturing
Children's Natural Love of Learning
by Jan Hunt, M.Sc. |
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| The main element in successful
unschooling is trust. We trust our children to know when they
are ready to learn and what they are interested in learning. We
trust them to know how to go about learning. Parents commonly
take this view of learning during the child's first two years,
when he is learning to stand, walk, talk, and to perform many
other important and difficult things, with little help from
anyone. No one worries that a baby will be too lazy,
uncooperative, or unmotivated to learn these things; it is
simply assumed that every baby is born wanting to learn the
things he needs to know in order to understand and to
participate in the world around him. These one- and two-year-old
experts teach us several principles of learning:
Children are naturally curious and have a built-in
desire to learn first-hand about the world around them.
John Holt, in his book How Children Learn, describes
the natural learning style of young children:
"The child is curious. He wants to make sense out of
things, find out how things work, gain competence and control
over himself and his environment, and do what he can see other
people doing. He is open, perceptive, and experimental. He
does not merely observe the world around him. He does not shut
himself off from the strange, complicated world around him,
but tastes it, touches it, hefts it, bends it, breaks it. To
find out how reality works, he works on it. He is bold. He is
not afraid of making mistakes. And he is patient. He can
tolerate an extraordinary amount of uncertainty, confusion,
ignorance, and suspense. ... School is not a place that gives
much time, or opportunity, or reward, for this kind of
thinking and learning." 1
Children know best how to go about learning
something.
If left alone, children will know instinctively what method
is best for them. Caring and observant parents soon learn that
it is safe and appropriate to trust this knowledge. Such
parents say to their baby, "Oh, that's interesting!
You're learning how to crawl downstairs by facing
backwards!" They do not say, "That's the wrong
way." Perceptive parents are aware that there are many
different ways to learn something, and they trust their
children to know which ways are best for them.
Children need plentiful amounts of quiet time to
think.
As John Holt noted in Teach Your Own, "Children
who are good at fantasizing are better both at learning about
the world and at learning to cope with its surprises and
disappointment. It isn't hard to see why this should be so. In
fantasy we have a way of trying out situations, to get some
feel of what they might be like, or how we might feel in them,
without having to risk too much. It also gives us a way of
coping with bad experiences, by letting us play and replay
them in our mind until they have lost much of their power to
hurt, or until we can make them come out in ways that leave us
feeling less defeated and foolish."2
But fantasy requires time, and time is the most endangered
commodity in our lives. Fully-scheduled school hours and
extracurricular activities leave little time for children to
dream, to think, to invent solutions to problems, to cope with
stressful experiences, or simply to fulfill the universal need
for solitude and privacy.
Children are not afraid to admit ignorance and to
make mistakes.
When Holt invited toddlers to play his cello, they would
eagerly attempt to do so; schoolchildren and adults would
invariably decline.
Unschooling children, free from the intimidation of public
embarrassment and failing marks, retain their openness to new
exploration. Children learn by asking questions, not by
answering them. Toddlers ask many questions, and so do school
children - until about grade three. By that time, many of them
have learned an unfortunate fact: that in school, it can be
more important for self-protection to hide one's ignorance
about a subject than to learn more about it, regardless of
one's curiosity.
Children take joy in the intrinsic values of whatever
they are learning.
There is no need to motivate children through the use of
extrinsic rewards, such as high grades or stars, which suggest
to the child that the activity itself must be difficult or
unpleasant; otherwise, why is a reward, which has nothing to
do with the matter at hand, being offered? The wise parent
says, "I think you'll enjoy this book", not "If
you read this book, you'll get a cookie."
Children learn best about getting along with other
people through interaction with those of all ages.
No parents would tell their baby, "You may only spend
time with those children whose birthdays fall within six
months of your own. Here's another two-year-old to play
with."
John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year,
contends, "It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a
system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of
exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively
cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the
synergy of variety; indeed, it cuts you off from your own past
and future...." 3
A child learns best about the world through
first-hand experience.
No parent would tell her toddler, "Let's put that
caterpillar down and get back to your book about
caterpillars." Unschoolers learn directly about the
world. Our son describes unschooling as "learning by
doing instead of being taught." Ironically, the most
common objection about unschooling is that children are
"being deprived of the real world."
Children need and deserve ample time with their
family.
Gatto warns us, "Between schooling and television, all
the time children have is eaten up. That's what has destroyed
the American family."4
Many unschoolers feel that family cohesiveness is perhaps the
most meaningful benefit of the experience. Just as I saw his
first step and heard his first word, I have the honor and
privilege of sharing my son's world and thoughts. Over the
years, I have discovered more from him about life, learning,
and love, than from any other source. The topic we seem to be
learning the most about is the nature of learning itself. I
sometimes wonder who learns more in unschooling families, the
parents or the children!
Stress interferes with learning.
Einstein wrote, "It is a very grave mistake to think
that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by
means of coercion."5
When a one-year-old falls down while learning to walk, we say,
"Good try! You'll catch on soon!" No caring parent
would say, "Every baby your age should be walking. You'd
better be walking by Friday!"
Most parents understand how difficult it is for their
children to learn something when they are rushed, threatened,
or given failing grades. John Holt warned that "we think
badly, and even perceive badly, or not at all, when we are
anxious or afraid... when we make children afraid, we stop
learning dead in its tracks." 6
While infants and toddlers teach us many principles of
learning, schools have adopted quite different principles, due
to the difficulties inherent in teaching a large number of
same-age children in a compulsory setting. The structure of
school (required attendance, school-selected topics and books,
and constant checking of the child's progress) assumes that
children are not natural learners, but must be compelled to
learn through the efforts of others.
Natural learners do not need such a structure. The success of
self-directed learning (unschoolers regularly outperform their
schooled peers on measures of academic achievement,
socialization, confidence, and self-esteem) strongly suggests
that structured approaches inhibit both learning and personal
development. Because unschooling follows principles of natural
learning, children retain the curiosity, enthusiasm, and love of
learning that every child has at birth.
Unschooling, as Holt writes, is a matter of faith. "This
faith is that by nature people are learning animals. Birds fly;
fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to
motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or
bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to
make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we
need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as
they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like
talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do
the rest." 7
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1 Holt,
John. How
Children Learn (New York: Perseus Books Group, 1995), p. 287.
2 Holt, John. Teach
Your Own (New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003), p. 128.
3 Gatto, John.
Dumbing
Us Down (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers), p. 24
4 Ibid., p.26.
5 Einstein,
Albert. Autobiographical Notes,
Open Court Publishing Company, 1991, p. 17.
6 Holt. How
Children Learn, op. cit., p. xv.
7 Ibid., p. 293.
Portuguese
translation |
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