Learning naturally

Learning naturally


by Susannah Andrews


Children and adults learn all the time. Of course children need to learn a lot more, this is why they go to school.
Right?
Wrong!
For me, the way I see it, children learn as they go along...from Mummy and Daddy, nanny, or carer, siblings and other adults who spend time with them.

Children learn from watching and imitating adults but also their friends and siblings, especially older children.
















Children learn by doing, with action and movement and with real life experience, such as sweeping, chopping, stirring, washing, holding something heavy, carrying, pushing, pulling carts/trolleys, building, making, creating,
sticking paper, threading needles, etc...
Children learn through play. 

Playing they imitate the world around them, they need to have stimuli! An adult working with their hands, doing domestic or artistic activities.

Sitting down and looking at a mobile phone or clicking the mouse in front of the computer, might be 'work' for some adults but it looks like not much to the children who observe us!
Reading a book has more purpose. The slower pace feeds our brain in a different way; when we read a book our breathing slows down and our heart beat is slower and more steady.
When children ask the usual question starting with 'Why?' - we need to pause and think, then try to simplify our thoughts and give a clear and brief answer ( that may lead the children to more 'Why'?).
This is for me a clever way or finding out information; the natural way for children is to get to the original question and investigate through and through, with a chain of questions that lead to other questions, which don't really call for an answer, but for reassurance more than anything. They need to know that by using this process they get to more questions and not necessarily a straight answer...
By a certain age, when they are confident with reading, they can find information from specialized books, like 'All about Mammals' and similar ones. The process of doing a research needs to be shown to children around 10 year old upwards. How to gather information, writing down and finding different sources of information. The natural way for younger children is to ask a grown up, so, next, they need to know how to 'ask a book'.

Real life is much more meaningful to children and if experiencing something with all their senses the learning comes naturally as living it fully brings a deeper understanding.


I show you some principles used in unschooling which match my approach to education.


Unschooling is an  alternative approach, also known as "natural learning", "experience-based learning", or "independent learning".

Principles of Unschooling Learning happens all the time. The brain never stops working and it is not possible to divide time up into "learning periods" versus "non-learning periods." Everything that goes on around a person, everything they hear, see, touch, smell, and taste, results in learning of some kind. Learning does not require coercion. In fact, learning cannot really be forced against someone's will. Coercion feels bad and creates resistance. Learning feels good. It is satisfying and intrinsically rewarding. Irrelevant rewards can have unintended side effects that do not support learning. Learning stops when a person is confused. All learning must build on what is already known. Learning becomes difficult when a person is convinced that learning is difficult. Unfortunately, most teaching methods assume learning is difficult and that lesson is the one that is really "taught" to the students. Learning must be meaningful. When a person doesn't see the point, when they don't know how the information relates or is useful in "the real world," then the learning is superficial and temporary - not "real" learning. Learning is often incidental. This means that we learn while engaged in activities that we enjoy for their own sakes and the learning happens as a sort of "side benefit." Learning is often a social activity, not something that happens in isolation from others. We learn from other people who have the skills and knowledge we're interested in and who let us learn from them in a variety of ways. We don't have to be tested to find out what we've learned. The learning will be demonstrated as we use new skills and talk knowledgeably about a topic. Feelings and intellect are not in opposition and not even separate things. All learning involves the emotions, as well as the intellect. Learning requires a sense of safety. Fear blocks learning. Shame and embarrassment, stress and anxiety - these block learning.

To finish my article I like to share with you this article from BBC news today. Happy reading and happy teaching
( PS switch off the PC after reading, go for a walk with your child, come home and bake some bread!)

Learning 'infantilised' by relying on internet

By Sean CoughlanBBC News education correspondent

Helen Fraser says learning should be like a slow casserole and not an instant nugget

Continue reading the main story

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The culture of clicking online for instant answers risks "infantilising" learning, says the head of a charity which runs independent girls schools.

Helen Fraser will warn delegates of the Girls' Day School Trust about the risk of pupils relying on "nuggets of information" from the internet.

She says that children should be reading whole books, rather than gathering a few shallow impressions.

Deeper learning takes time, she says, like a "slow casserole".

Ms Fraser is to give her warning against the intellectual equivalent of fast food to the annual conference of the Girls' Day School Trust, which runs 24 independent schools and two academies.

'Switch off'

"I do worry that the ease of access to nuggets of information means that our appetites are becoming infantilised.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Research shouldn't just mean 'look it up on Google'”

Helen FraserGirls' Day School Trust

"We're so used to fast facts that we're in danger of losing sight of the truth that some learning is more of a slow casserole, with knowledge stewing in our minds to form a richer, deeper flavour," Ms Fraser will tell the conference on Wednesday.

"So I'm a firm believer in the importance for our students of switching off the computer, the radio, the smartphone, the TV, and any other distractions, and reading a whole book - I would say from cover to cover."

Ms Fraser says she is concerned about the way that quick-fix answers from internet search engines can leave children with a lack of awareness of different views and a one-dimensional view of topics.

"I want to bring back thinking - and I think a lot of what happens on the internet is antipathetic to thinking and suggests there is no alternative view," says Ms Fraser, the trust's chief executive.

Learning should be about engaging with ideas, rather than "regurgitating facts", she says.

Screen age

Reaching for the search engine is not the best way of finding the value of competing and sometimes contradictory perspectives, she argues.

Ms Fraser, a former managing director of Penguin Books, says that schools need to create the space for children to think creatively around a subject.

But she says that it is hard to challenge the instant gratification of online answers when it is imbued from an early age.

"Two-year-olds are playing with their mothers' iPhones. It's a generation which looks to screens for stimulation," she says.

Ms Fraser says she is not against digital technology - and that educational software can provide useful motivation - but she is worried that an over-reliance on computers can leave children with only a superficial understanding or the belief that there is only one "right" answer.

"Research shouldn't just mean 'look it up on Google'," she says.

And in her conference speech she will speak of the importance of young people engaging with a whole book, rather than a few highlights.

"I'm not really bothered whether it's paper or an e-book, the important thing is that it's read from start to finish - following an author's train of thought, through perhaps some complex arguments and situations, from first principles through to their conclusion.

"It's only by learning deeply about and around a subject that you can truly hope to master it."