Everett
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Posts: 3,549
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« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2005, 09:18:38 PM » |
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« Edited: November 18, 2005, 09:24:56 PM by Lt. Governor Everett »
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My mother is a longtime schoolteacher and educator, a proponent of homeschooling, and an ardent supporter of the Montessori movement, but I highly doubt that even she would see the viability of this proposal. She has taught at numerous public and private schools, enjoyed working with preschoolers and kindergarteners (she specialised in early childhood education, which was her focus when she earned her Master's Degree in Education), and has a lot of experience with both children and adults. In general, she has found that young children need to explore freely, but they almost always require supervision and some kind of direction. They don't simply walk to the library and start doing something completely independently. Now, if an adult forces them to do something at 10AM, something else at 11AM, and then naptime at noon, they probably won't enjoy learning so much. If an adult gives them options, say, fingerpainting, planting tomatoes in the garden, playing with blocks/geometric shapes, or reading various books, then the children will usually find something that they enjoy. However, most children don't just figure something out on their own. For example, although I have always liked math to some extent, I would not have thought to play with numbers when I was six years old - my mother had to give me options and activities (workbooks, flashcards, M&Ms... et cetera). When I was nine, I spontaneously decided, completely of my own volition, that I wanted to study Trigonometry, and study Trigonometry I did. It would not have happened when I was younger, however, because it simply did not. I almost always responded well to activity suggestions, but I rarely thought of my own activities. Therefore, without structure of some kind, most children will not learn. The other thing is, I am clearly an exception, not the norm, and even I did not always learn by independently accessing something and then gaining knowledge. It obviously happened, but later on in life, by the time I was eight or nine. The early years are formative years, when children learn most of the stuff that they will need in life, and I don't really believe in turning children loose and sending them to the library. Maybe later, but not when they are very young.
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