Based on Chapter Three of Robert Fried’s book ‘The Game of
School’
There seems to be a worry about the language deficiency that
many young enter school with – the technocratic solution is to test students
and then assist students achieve accordingly – this often involves imposing
phonic lessons on underachieving children. If are interested in where we might be taken by John Hattie visit this link.
In contrast there have always been educators that the real solution is to ensure students have experiences from which language facility develops - 'before the word the experience'. A New Zealand educator Sylvia Ashton
Warner's work with young Maori children in the 1950s comes to mind with her ‘key vocabulary’ ( involving reading and writing) arising out
of the personal experiences of her students. At the same time Elwyn Richardson developed
his students writing (and reading) from their ‘felt experiences’
Elwyn Richardson |
Unfortunately the emphasis on reading over the years has
replaced the importance of experience.With this in mind chapter three of Robert Fried’s book (The
Game of School) reinforces the importance of experience and in this chapter he
calls on the writing of early environmentalist the late Rachel Carson.
Fried writes that there is a connection between the sorry
plight of education and the failure to ignore the importance of passionate
learning- that education actually undermines this evolutionary drive to learn
through experience.
‘Exploring nature with
your child is largely a matter of becoming receptive to what lies around you.
It is learning to use your eyes, ears, nostrils and finger tips, opening up the
disused channels of sensory impression.’ – Rachel Carson.
Rachel Carson |
In school, Fried sees ‘kids hooked by an intense curiosity,
drawn by an enhanced sensory awareness of the natural world around them, driven
by the importance of acting as explorers and scientists motivated by an irrepressible urge to share what they have
discovered.’
It is this innate drive that ought to be a feature of
learning in school but all too often this is no longer the case. This is a shame
because as Fried writes ‘we are inveterate talkers. We can no more keep
information to ourselves that hold our breath for five minutes’. So with
children. ‘They are the inheritors of our evolutionary gift of knowledge
seeking and information sharing.’
Schools are not Fried writes ‘well suited to nurture the
complex drives of children’s curiosity, sensory awareness, self-importance, and
talkativeness….in the nineteenth century schools began to construct obstacles a
to inhibit these hereditary instincts….. ( schools) where we sit them down,
tell them a lot of stuff we think is important, try to control their restless
curiosity, and test them to see how well they’ve listened to us.’
In 1956 Rachel Carson wrote a book for her four year old
nephew who she often took for walks. She describes her informal pedagogy this
way: ‘I
have made no conscious effort to name plants or animals nor to explain to him,
but have just expressed my own pleasure in what we see, calling his attention
to this or that …. Later I have been amazed the way names stick…..(We) were just going through the woods in the
spirit of two friends on an expedition of exciting discovery.’
Later Carson writes about this ‘learning experience’ in her
book for her nephew saying, ‘A child’s
world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our
misfortune that for most of us that clear eyed vision…is lost before we reach
adulthood.’ If she had the influence she would want ‘each child in the world be (given) a sense of wonder so indestructible
that it would last throughout life as an unfailing antidote against the boredom
and disenchantment of later years’.
Rachel was not referring to school per se as she was talking
to parents encouraging them to encourage their children to experience the world,
the sky, the stars, the wind, trees, the rain, the cityscape, seasonal changes
through their senses. The lesson however is there for schools as well.
Robert Fried |
These are idea that reach back to the learning through
problem solving and experience of John Dewey and echo the vision of the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum that students should ‘be seekers, users and creators of their own knowledge’.
NZ Curriculum |
Unfortunately the ‘Game of School’ that Fried writes about is
all too often an intellectually and sensory starved environment, ‘one where
children’s curiosity, their capacity for sensory intelligence, their desire for
heightened self-identities as discovers and synthesizers of knowledge have been
blunted by adult preoccupations with the “delivery of instruction” and with the
most narrow and constraining of assessment instruments, linked to sate
curriculums curriculum frameworks and tests.’
‘This pseudo learning’, Fried writes, ‘mocks authentic
learning’ and that’ once locked into such compliance makes the role of the
teacher so much more difficult. After all, how can we teach the incurious? How
can we awaken those whose senses have been dulled by the monotony of
schoolwork? How can we reach those who feel decidedly un-powerful? How can we
motivate the silenced youth amongst us to claim their share of the stage on
which knowledge is brought to life to be shared?
4 comments:
Hi Bruce,
You might enjoy this for a read
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2014/04/jerome-bruner-on-whats-behind-the-surprise-of-creativity.html
Jody
Thank you Jody.
I still have that keruru you gave me in pride of place. I will include that Jerome Bruner link in our next readings - I really like Bruner.
I hope you are enjoying your holiday.
Bruce
Thank you for reminding us of the power of the language experience approach to teaching. I see too many new entrants sitting at tables filling in work sheets, often from a bought "programme", usually around phonics. And then teachers worry that these students have "no oral language" or that the students are disengaged. How do we turn this tide? I think teachers are allowing their professional judgements to be undermined by so called "experts" who are often only interested in selling their product, which they promote as a panacea for
learning difficulties. We, as teachers, need to trust ourselves and get back to doing what we know works.
Thank you so much Vicki for your insightful comment. Although I no longer visit many classrooms I agree with you that the real world of students and experiences of the real environment are all but neglected. Worksheets, phonics - might as well be in America. Guess you know of Gail Loane? She is worth listening to. In the past junior teachers had a real input into educational thought - developmental approaches, language experience, language arts. I am going to add a link to Marie Clay - if I can find it!
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