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Understanding
Life Learning
by Wendy Priesnitz
Life learning (sometimes
called "unschooling," "natural learning" or
"self-directed learning"...or even "homeschooling") is one
of those concepts that is almost easier to define by saying what it isn’t,
than what it is. And that’s probably because our own schooled backgrounds
have convinced us that learning happens only in a dedicated building on
certain days, between certain hours, and managed by a specially trained
professional.
Within that schooling
framework, no matter how hard teachers try and no matter how eloquent their
text books, many bright students get bored, many slower students struggle and
give up or lose their self-esteem, and most of them reach the end of the
process unprepared to make the transition to adulthood. They have memorized a
certain body of knowledge long enough to regurgitate the information on tests,
but they haven’t really learned much, at least of the official
curriculum.
Life learners, on the other
hand, know that learning is not difficult, that people learn things quite
easily if they’re not compelled and coerced, if they see a need to learn
something, and if they are trusted and respected enough to learn it on their
own timetable, at their own speed, in their own way. They know that learning
cannot be produced in us and that we cannot produce it in others – no matter
what age and no matter if we’re at school or at home.
They understand that the
tools used in schools, such as text books, lesson plans, testing, grading,
report cards, course requirements, motivating students, homework assignments,
blackboard writing, bulletin board decorating, schedules and attendance
regulations, are all designed to manage or account for the efficient delivery
of information in a publicly funded setting. They have little to do with how
people actually learn.
Life learning happens
independent of time, location or the presence of a teacher. It does not
require mom or dad to teach, or kids to work in workbooks at the kitchen table
from 9 to noon from September to June.
Life learning is learner
driven. It involves living and learning – in and from the real world. It is
about exploring, questioning, experimenting, making messes, taking risks
without fear of ridicule, making mistakes and trying again.
Life learning does not
involve memorized theory so much as it requires applying knowledge. And that
often means moving around, talking, experimenting, thinking, jumping up and
down...and sometimes appearing not to be doing anything at all. It allows
flexibility, independence and freedom from all the school-type interferences
that can get in the way of real learning.
In conventional education,
the curriculum rules. It must be completed so that testing, grading and
reporting can begin. In this sort of atmosphere, accurately duplicating the
results of scientific experiments that others have already performed is more
important than finding out something new. Finishing pages of math equations is
more important than understanding how the numbers relate to each other.
But kids are natural
scientists and don’t need to be taught science. They are also natural
mathematicians and don’t need to be told how to count things. Developmental
psychologist and Harvard professor Robert White calls this instinct to learn,
to manipulate, to master an “urge toward competence.” What he means is
that we are born with not just a desire, but the need to have an impact
on our surroundings, to control and understand the world in which we live.
We do not just sit and wait
for the world to come to us...unless we are among the unfortunate majority who
are told to sit down, line up, be quiet and wait. Life learners try actively
to interpret the world, to make sense of it. Of course, this drive to discover
means we are constantly learning...and also experiencing the pride that comes
with having understood new things and having mastered new skills.
So life learning is about
trusting kids to learn what they need to know and about helping them to learn
and grow in their own ways. It is about providing positive, life-affirming
experiences that enable children to understand the world and their culture and
to interact with it.
Children learn two of the
most important and difficult things they will ever learn during the first two
years of life: how to walk and how to talk. Why? Because they want to. So they
work hard at learning the necessary skills, purposefully, passionately,
constantly. As parents, we encourage, support, protect, cheer from the
sidelines and model the behavior. But most of all, we trust in their ultimate
success.
That early learning is a
model for all self-directed learning. As parents, our role as life learning
facilitators is the same as it was when our children learned how to walk and
talk. We talk with our kids and answer their questions honestly; we provide
opportunities for interaction with other people (including elderly family and
community members); we share and model learning; we create a secure
environment by supporting the risk-and mistake-making processes; we keep their
world whole rather than breaking it up into subjects; we enrich their
environment with books, pens, paper and other learning materials; we celebrate
their accomplishments; we learn about and help them utilize their individual
learning styles; and we provide access to the real world and the tools that
are part of it.
We also provide the time
for our children to investigate their own ideas. And – perhaps the biggest
challenge for many parents – we are flexible and patient observers of a
process that is not particularly sequential or organized, in spite of what the
curriculum writers would have us believe.
Life learning is not a
method of education, nor are there any step-by-step guidelines or rules for
doing it the right way. It is a way of life, a way of looking at the world and
at children. It is about self-direction, about learning from life and
throughout life. It is about kids, families and communities regaining control
over their days, their learning, their money, their resources and their
ability to direct and manage themselves.
As William Butler Yeats
is supposed to have written, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a
fire.”
This essay
first appeared in Childs Play Magazine in 1988. It is now posted on the
Life
Learning Magazine website.
copyright (c) Wendy Priesnitz 2010
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