Happy New Year.
A new year is always an opportunity to look ahead with optimism. Everyone can make a positive impact on our lives and world. Whether or not we actually make (and follow-through on) new year’s resolutions, here are five bold learning ideas that challenge the status quo in ‘education’. Embrace all or just one of these ideas in the new year and embrace the natural curiosity within your children.
1. Make Learning Fun. Is there something you enjoy doing so much that when you are doing it, you lose track of time? What if we could get kids to feel this way about learning? Every child I have ever polled has said they dislike school. Most would choose learning at home. Figure out what it is that our children really love to do (and don’t pass judgement). If your little boy enjoys comic books more than anything else on the planet, go with it. Beside the many learning opportunities that stem from comic books, children in charge of their own learning dig deeper naturally. They’ll learn about history, writing, telling a story, good vs. evil, artwork, reading, research, and so much more. Relax. Trust your child’s passion. Make Learning Fun.
2. Play with Toys. Kids almost never associate ‘school’ with toys or play. Toys are fun and school is a chore. Imagine changing that association children have with learning by allowing them to play with their toys as part of their learning landscape. Be careful not to overly structure the learning opportunities that come from incorporating toys into learning. Physics, story writing, stop-motion animation videos, math, and even history are presented in a fun, non-threatening, toy-based way. Make bar graphs out of toy cars, sorted by color. Build a Rube Goldberg device out of toys and household items. Launch tiny action figures in a home-made seltzer rocket. Recreate the scene of a favorite book using dolls, stuffed animals, and accessories. Use your imagination and bring those toys into the learning arena!
3. Ditch the Curriculum. Fact-based, memorization-focused, drill and kill, fill in the blank, multiple choice, and other worksheet-based curriculum materials are B-O-R-I-N-G. Even adults dislike this kind of learning. Trust your child to lead the way and the curriculum (if you can call it that) will develop naturally. For example, a field trip to a historic village left an impact on little Jennie. She learned that her last name is a word from the time of the Vikings. Is she descended from Vikings? Who are the Vikings? Where did they live? How might she learn more? Now, a curious child with a personal connection to history is on a mission. She is researching, reading, discussing, mapping, drawing, and writing about Vikings. Perhaps she learns about the Viking navigational methods and tools, learns to make some of the same navigational calculations, seeks information about weather factors that affected Viking navigation and the ocean currents and prevailing winds they harnessed. Did the Vikings navigate using the sun and stars? The possibilities for learning from a simple connection are endless. Expose children to many things. Find something they connect with personally. Give them support as they launch their own learning journey built around a quest for knowledge. Ditch the dusty old worksheet and bring learning to life!
4. Tolerance. Why is tolerance in this list? Of all the things we can learn, learning to understand and accept others who are different from us is the most innately human. Without tolerance, we continue to live in a world filled with hate and violence. Without tolerance, we spend too much time drawing lines, defending our ideas, and fighting over stuff. If we embrace tolerance, we have more time for building bridges, relationships, and friendship. Immigration, terrorism, religious extremism, and economic disparity are very real issues. Share tolerant perspectives with children so that they can build bridges, relationships, and friendships that will extinguish the hate that fuels these issues. Otherwise, we risk perpetuating hate, poverty, distrust, and war.
5. Share. There are so many ways kids can learn from sharing. Sharing toys, food, clothes, ideas, time and anything else of value not only enriches a child’s sense of self but also instills empathy. Lack of empathy has been linked to bullying in schools. Sharing a toy with another child at the playground might lead to a new friendship. Sharing an idea with other youth around the world through a TEDx youth event might inspire other kids to share their ideas. Help children learn that by sharing, they are influencing their world in a positive way.
