Learning by Doing- Everything!
When a child or a young person is given a concrete task, along with the tools, time and space to enter into a process of learning and discovering how to fulfill it, a creative dialogue begins to flow. This is the basis for practical intelligence. During this work, the student masters essential problem solving and creative skills for life.
Here are three small examples:
A teacher in Washington State did not like the ugly metal desks in his third grade classroom. His teaching style was to foster more creative and collaborative relationships so he wanted two students to sit together at work tables. He taught his students how to write proposals to the Board and local business owners for building materials. Soon his class had built handsome 14 wooden tables for two students each which they sat at all year, designed and built by 8 year- olds.
I read about his project when I started teaching third grade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We had beautiful tables for two, but our chairs did not reach them. We designed and built benches for the tables and used them all year. The tables were a great size for baking, sawing, gluing, cutting cloth and many other projects, including making our own books. The pine benches we made were financed by selling eggs. The chickens and their school built hen house were financed by selling vegetables grown from our school gardens.
Our class was in charge of ringing the recess bell. Our chore chart is a wheel with 16 spokes for all the tasks we have to do each day, including the bell ringing. Not everyone has a watch. We were studying the history of time, so we decided to use a watch every few days and mark the correct time with a stick in the ground with a watch and ring the bell on the shadow line made by our sundial. Not an exact science, but time in our school is sometimes relative- clocks also seem to vary from room to room! The result was a practical application of a new learning experience.
Can we create a new way of learning in schools that fosters independence, initiative and sustainability? I imagine a field where the classrooms are waiting to be built out of the principles of love, compassion and courage that all children are born with as their gift to the world. It is a classroom they are expecting us to show up in so we can learn our life lessons....
When a child or a young person is given a concrete task, along with the tools, time and space to enter into a process of learning and discovering how to fulfill it, a creative dialogue begins to flow. This is the basis for practical intelligence. During this work, the student masters essential problem solving and creative skills for life.
Here are three small examples:
A teacher in Washington State did not like the ugly metal desks in his third grade classroom. His teaching style was to foster more creative and collaborative relationships so he wanted two students to sit together at work tables. He taught his students how to write proposals to the Board and local business owners for building materials. Soon his class had built handsome 14 wooden tables for two students each which they sat at all year, designed and built by 8 year- olds.
I read about his project when I started teaching third grade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We had beautiful tables for two, but our chairs did not reach them. We designed and built benches for the tables and used them all year. The tables were a great size for baking, sawing, gluing, cutting cloth and many other projects, including making our own books. The pine benches we made were financed by selling eggs. The chickens and their school built hen house were financed by selling vegetables grown from our school gardens.
Our class was in charge of ringing the recess bell. Our chore chart is a wheel with 16 spokes for all the tasks we have to do each day, including the bell ringing. Not everyone has a watch. We were studying the history of time, so we decided to use a watch every few days and mark the correct time with a stick in the ground with a watch and ring the bell on the shadow line made by our sundial. Not an exact science, but time in our school is sometimes relative- clocks also seem to vary from room to room! The result was a practical application of a new learning experience.
Can we create a new way of learning in schools that fosters independence, initiative and sustainability? I imagine a field where the classrooms are waiting to be built out of the principles of love, compassion and courage that all children are born with as their gift to the world. It is a classroom they are expecting us to show up in so we can learn our life lessons....
