There are those little learning moments that are so crucial to capture, both for adults and children. Those times when something sparks in the mind of the learner, and they take control of their own learning. We're on Week 3, and that hasn't happened much so far - and it's mainly my fault. It's hard to break away from the traditional way of doing school - after all, most of us are products of "sit still and listen" public education. I tend to kill those little sparky moments by getting in the middle of the boy's business, telling them the better way to do it, providing more direction than what they need if they're truly going to own the project or the information.
Rich started collecting boxes to build a castle with last week. In an effort to seize the moment, I ran out and found a dozen castle books, websites, and other castle related things for him to look at - I took over, and he lost interest. It took him a couple of days to find that spark again, but today he started cutting, painting, comparing his boxes to a picture he choose from the web. My attempts to cram history, math, and reading about castles into that moment backfired. Rich is the kind of kid that wants to *do* - the learning stems from that, and very rarely precedes it. Lesson learned, Dad.
No comments:
Post a Comment