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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 LauraM Pro Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 77 posts - 97 votes  Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 28 25 April 2010 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How many children have a passion for learning anything?
ALL OF THEM!!!!! It isn't until forced/compulsory education begins that this appetite wanes. Have you ever been around a 2, 3, 4, or 5 year old? They want to *do* everything, HELP with everything, LEARN everything. It is human nature...until such things are forced upon them. That doesn't mean I don't think compulsory education does not have its place. However, in my oh-so-humble- opinion, the ideal school would not so much "impart knowledge" but guide children in whatever direction their natural curiosity brings them. This would, of course, mean complete overhaul of the educational system as we know it. But I can only imagine if instead of one teacher who teaches everything, we have only those passionate about their area of study in this position...with appropriate pay as if they were actually working in said field. And allowed to use whichever resources they see fit, not forced to use inadequate materials approved by some far- removed official or board, hoping it's the one that will help them merely "pass the test" and make their school/district look good. So I have to say, yes, I do believe children are hungry to learn...until that hunger is squelched. It usually isn't until after high school that people develop or re-develop their passions. This is probably getting a bit off-topic, but I have children aged 1 to age 26 years old, and I have seen and experienced a LOT! I've spent many years both homeschooling and in public schools. I had a son emotionally beaten down and with dismally low test scores. I brought him home for 6th grade and his 23rd percentile ranking went up to 89th percentile in just ONE YEAR. I merely catered to his interests and based my curriculum on that. Man, how I fretted throughout that year, wondering if I could really be doing a decent job in just 3 hours a day when the school had kept him captive for six....and not that I'm a big proponent of standardized testing, but it sure made his former principal feel stupid when she warned me that I needed credentialed teachers to see any progress... 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 6159 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 26 of 28 25 April 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
Nice work! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 27 of 28 26 April 2010 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have a feeling many posters here would enjoy reading about the Unschooling method.
Also, those who are *really* into alternative education might like reading Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society", which is available for free online here: http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.h tml Although written in the seventies, this book remains pretty current, and actually, some of the learning methods he suggested have become possible and now exist thanks to modern technology (most notably, the internet). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7015 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 28 of 28 01 May 2010 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Just a couple of quick replies to LauraM, before I post the main message:
I should have used "teenagers" instead of "children". I teach 14-18 year olds and, although they're not really children, I can't help considering them as such. I teach very few pupils who are really passionate about learning anything (not just school-related material) and I don't believe that it's because this thirst for knowledge was beaten out of them by an oppressive school system. Perhaps we should take a closer look at society as a whole rather than just the school system.
I think that for that to work, there would have to be more than just an educational system overhaul, but rather a complete re-adjustment of a great part of society. I'm not sure how well that would work for older "children" learning more technical and advanced concepts (such as calculus, quantum physics, etc.) since I don't know how far their curiosity would take them along those particular paths. In effect, if some of these concepts were not taught, then we surely cannot expect each pupil to "re-derive" the laws of physics on their own. A simple example to illustrate my point: The first farmer in antiquity who learned to rotate his crops every season probably taught his sons to do so. If he hadn't, then that knowledge would have been lost unless his sons had discovered it for themselves. This would have been an inefficient transfer of information and the community would not have benefitted. If we had to re-invent and re-discover everything for ourselves, our current society would probably be very different and this is not necessarily a good thing. My post on the previous page was written to try and put a teacher's point across since I feel that it is often forgotten in numerous discussions on this forum and it sometimes appears as if there is a great deal of "teacher-bashing" going on. It's very easy to blame someone else for personal failings (the I-couldn't-learn-because-the-teacher-was-crap syndrome) instead of admitting that you just couldn't be bothered because your interests lay elsewhere. Whilst I am in favour of self-learning (especially languages, otherwise I wouldn't be here), it doesn't automatically mean that the role of the teacher is pointless. A great deal of members complain about how uninspiring their teachers are and how badly languages, and perhaps other subjects, are taught in schools. Threads such as "How my High School Spanish class sucks" or "I didn't learn anything in school, now I'm learning 20 languages on my own" are started and everyone has a right old moan and vents their frustrations and anger at those inept teachers who actively held them back from achieving their full potential. I don't think that teachers are always to blame and perhaps they should be praised for managing to promote some kind of learning despite the information they have to deliver and the limitations imposed by the restricted curricula they are forced to impart to their students. There are obviously many ways in which a very boring syllabus can be made to come alive and this depends on the teacher's individual teaching styles and, to some extent, their personality. Unfortunately, the saying "you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink" is very apt in numerous classroom situations, regardless of how amazing the lesson was and how outstanding the teacher input was. I am not saying (and will never say) that all teachers are brilliant and faultless. There are variations in teaching standards, as in all walks of life and, whilst some teachers are quite useless, others do manage to inspire their pupils towards great things. Edited by patuco on 01 May 2010 at 2:30pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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