Re: What Science Has to say about how children learn

From: Nina Sazer O'Donnell
Email: nina.sazerodonnell@gmail.com
Date: February 15, 2006

Comments

Hi Annette:

I'm not entirely sure I know what you mean by put a freeze on education, but we can easily squelch children's desire to learn in many ways.

Some ways to avoid this are to: -be observant and notice what children are interested in and/or curious about and use what we observe to encourage their interests and curiosity;

- give children opportunities to learn like scientists - that is to form theories, test their theories, make mistakes and revise their theories;

-allow children to struggle and work at things, rather than trying to make them easy or hurrying them;

-think of everything as a learning experience, and ask children questions about what they are doing; and

-model being a learner - that is to be interested in the world around you as an adult and share your own curiosity and enjoyment of learning.

Fortunately, children's learning and love of learning is built on many, many moments and if an adult sometimes isn't patient or misses a learning moment, they will still be okay as long as for the majority of their days they are known and understood and encouraged to be curious.

Thanks for your comments,

Nina