Love Learning

The Big Switch

Really, it was an about-face.

Back in the day when I engaged in teaching, I did everything very traditionally. For circle time, we sat in a circle. We sang the ABCs, counted to a particular number we chose, and we eventually started "learning our letter sounds." That exercise sounded like this: "Ay says a, a, a, for apple. Be says buh, buh, buh for ball." Etc. Like I said yesterday, I noted after some time that some of the kids were not getting much out of this practice, and I started to wonder why. This was a traditionally-accepted way to teach and review those all important basic skills. It was about at this time that I began to ponder the notion of some brains being defective or not.

Fast forward a couple of years.

Reading all sorts of research was great. Research prompted a myriad questions in my mind. I began really observing my preschoolers. It was amazing what I saw in them. What follows is an activity I did with a small group I taught every day.

THE EXPERIENCE:

Reading and planning time: 5 hours. Book: Seven Pathways of Learning by David Lazear. Engaged time, 1.5 hours.

Goal: was to set up a thematic "experience" for the children, incorporating the seven pathways of learning. I would then record in great detail their reactions to the activity.

Children: Peter, Phillip, Mitch, Shelly - all 4 years old.

Preparation: I made a simple poster for each child depicting land, water, and air. I cut out pictures of vehicles and gave a small stack to each child.

Activity: Sitting on the floor, we spread the pictures out and discussed "going places" and what vehicles we could use to get to each place. Next I asked the children to classify the vehicles based on where they operate: on land, water, or air. They glued their pictures in place as they wished. In addition, they had markers and crayons with which to embellish their posters.

Taking it Further: Next, I told little stories to engage their imaginations and juice up their problem solving motors.  

First Scenario: "Mr. Green decided to go out for a ride in his boat. It was a beautiful day and before you know it, he was in the very middle of Lake Michigan. Suddenly, however, he ran out of gas!" [Greatly abbreviated. In real life, the story drew them in so they were almost a part of the adventure. We lived in Michigan, so they were familiar with the lake]. "If you were going to help Mr. Green, what would you do?"

Actual Student Responses:

Phillip: "I'd use a helicopter. I'd fly out there and throw down a rope ladder."

Me: "Why wouldn't you use an airplane?"

Mitch: "I think it goes too fast."

Peter: "The helicopter can hover."

Mitch: "But we can't leave the boat out there."

Me: "What should we do?"

Mitch: "We can get a box and put gas in it."

Me: "How would you get it to the boat?"

Shelly: "I don't like to ride in a boat! It makes me scared!" (soon she is humming)

Phillip: "We could take it to him in another boat. Then we could tow Mr. Green's boat to land."

Next Scenario:

Me: "If you want to go to China, what vehicle would get you there best?"

Shelly: "I like my red wagon. Sometimes Daddy pulls Chris and me in the wagon. I take my dolly."

Phillip: "In an airplane."

Peter: "I'd get this big shovel and I would dig a hole straight down until I got to China." (Big grin) He remained totally silent after his comment, but fully attentive to our conversation. After a few minutes, he took out a green marker and drew the most amazing submarine, complete with periscope, in his lake.

Wrap-up: I encouraged the children to decorate their posters any way they wanted to.

Observations: This was my first formal observation of my students. My initial impressions of them were as follows:

Shelly is intrapersonal and musical/rhythmic. Her comments had a lot to do with what she likes or doesn't like. She hummed or sang to herself now and then.

Mitch is interpersonal, I believe. He is more interested in caring for the person in the situation than he is in the mechanics of "the rescue." Most of the rest of the time, Mitch had his marker cap off, letting it dry out, totally engrossed in watching the others work. He asked Peter a lot of questions about what he was drawing. Mitch did draw a lot of earthworms in the ground on his poster.

Phillip is logical/mathematical all the way! He very carefully organized all his earth vehicles in regular intervals on the top curve of his land. His poster was boring but organized. He was involved in his project, but was not "lost" in his work like Peter was. I sensed he felt he had a problem to solve, and that meant classifying, pasting, and coloring, and so that is what he did. Before he finished, he drew a stilted row of flowers at the bottom of his picture: all the same size and all brown. This last activity fulfilled the directive "You may decorate your posters however you want to."

Peter is so visual/spatial! As I watched his responses to this experience, I felt he showed his feelings for the project by how involved he bacame in his drawing. The more interesting the discussion to him, the more engrossed and detailed his drawings became.

What I get out of this? In most classrooms, Phillip would have been greatly rewarded for his responses. He is super left brained, logical, verbal, and we do so love that! I think that Mitch would have gotten low marks for his responses in most classrooms, as would have Peter and Shelly. However, these four children represent a pretty accurate cross-section of the children found in real classrooms everywhere.

What this means to me:

We get really nervous as teachers if we don't have something in front of us to put a grade on. We feel the most comfortable with our Phillips...these kids produce a product, the product usually contains the elements required in the lesson. These products get an A. We expect verbal communication, participation, a demonstration of comprehension of our lesson. Which brings me to the bottom line. What was my POINT in this activity? Was it to make a poster so I could grade them and send them home so the parents would know we were "learning something"? Was it to teach classification? Was it an art project? In this instance, I think I learned more than the kids did. I wanted to engage them in a discussion, wanted to learn how they respond to learning experiences, wanted to let them "produce" from out of their own particular giftedness. I learned far more than they did, for sure.

The Big Switch in my teaching style had begun! Rather than teaching the material the kids needed to know, I was going to learn to teach CHILDREN the way they learn best. I was going to try and engage their brains every chance I got!

What do you think about this?

Thinking About Learning Differences

Just realized: I must have always liked teaching. My parents crack up when they recall the times I corralled a group of neighborhood kids to teach them Bible stories in our backyard. I was a very earnest 8 or 10, and the setting was Honduras in the early 60's. I am not sure I should say LIKED teaching; I didn't ever think about it. I think I just engaged in teaching automatically from time to time.

In 9th grade, I remember being fascinated with minds and fancied myself a brain surgeon. In the fullness of time I registered for Chemistry class, then had to get special permission (groveling) from the headmaster to drop the class when I chickened out before day one. Abandoning Chemistry, of course, meant abandoning my medical aspirations. My interest in minds went underground as I went on to college and majored in art. (Big segway!) I did consider a double major in education and art, but the intro to ed class was so mind-numbing that I dropped out almost immediately, thus eliminating that whole career path as an option for me. Frankly I could not imagine subjecting future generations to that level of boredom.

Many years, many "jobs" and two semi-grown children later, my interest in minds resurfaced when I started a child care facility. My teaching habit also resurfaced and I began to do circle time, chant the ABC's, teach letter sounds...you know, the "basic skills." I soon noticed that I could teach something (in some cases repeating it many times) and not every child would "get it." "Hmmm," I said to myself.

Later, while teaching kindergarten to these same kids, I decided to go to grad school and study about differences in learning. I tentatively believed that all children could learn, but I wanted some expert proof of this suspicion. Everything I read and everything I wrote went through this filter of "every child can learn" and "there is no such thing as a bad brain." So I worked with my kids during the day and studied at night. I was really paying attention to the differences in learners and trying very hard to change my practices so that they could be successful. It was when I started telling stories, drawing pictures, letting the kids lead in their learning so that I could learn from them how they learned.

My point?

What I have learned over a lifetime is that there are so many learning differences! (so many kinds of minds) While in grad school, I did prove to my own satisfaction that the brain is good - that what needs to change is how we approach a child's brain. I've been practicing with that notion ever since.

Listen to an expert: Mel Levine. Everyone's heard of him!

"Planet earth is inhabited by all kinds of people who have all kinds of minds. [From A Mind at a Time, Simon and Schuster...you can get it anywhere...picture included for visual learners among us]. The brain of each human is unique. Some minds are wired to create symphonies and sonnets, while others are fitted out to build bridges, highways, and computers; design airplanes and road systems; drive trucks and taxicabs; or seek cures for breast cancer and hypertension. The growth of our society and the progress of the world are dependent on our commitment to fostering in our children, and among ourselves, the coexistence and mutual respect of these many different kinds of minds." (page 13)

Main point here is that our brains are as they are by design.

One more quote:

On page 23: "It's taken for granted in adult society that we cannot all be generalists skilled in every area of learning and mastery. Nevertheless, we apply tremendous pressure on our children to be good at everything. Every day they are expected to shine in math, reading, writing, speaking, spelling, memorization, comprehension, problem solving, socialization, athletics, and following verbal directions. Few if any children can master all of these "trades." And none of us adults can. In one way or another, all minds have their specialties and their frailties."

Wow. You just need to read the book several times if you have not already. There are so many implications here, and all are so on target.

One more thing I have to say for now is this:

We have so much knowledge of minds. We know every child is gifted with a specialty. But we do not behave that way in the classroom with them when we are teaching them. We expect every child to perform exactly the same. If they don't, we assume they are faulty or broken, or learning disabled. It just doesn't make sense to me. Most of the time we teach to one specialty. The others lose out. The challenge for us as teachers and parents is to teach in such a way that we reach all kinds of learners.