There
are two fundamental ways to learn. One
is to make a decision to think/act/ or speak in a certain way and then to learn
from the consequences, which could be good or bad. The other way is to allow someone to tell you
about someone else’s actions and what their consequences were. When we are small children we tend to try
things out on our own to see what works and what doesn’t work, but as we get older we discover that if
we listen to what others have done we can save ourselves a lot of pain. The role or purpose of a teacher is to be
that guide. To explain to students what
has been done in the past, what has worked, and what has not worked. Then the teacher allows the student to make
the decision as to what they want to do.
The students mind has been expanded beyond their personal experience and
then teacher has given them the tools to decide. To decide what? Anything.
Teachers give students the tools to make their own decisions based on a
wealth of knowledge and in the context of their own lives.
For
example a physics teacher can explain the laws of gravity to a student in high
school. Then later in life they travel
to a bridge that spans a beautiful river far below that has a bungee jump
platform. Now the physics teacher
explained that gravity pulls a mass toward the Earth’s surface and that for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now the physics teacher just taught them
about the laws of physics not whether or not it is a good idea to jump off a
bridge. So the student is able to weigh
these laws and decide to jump or not to jump.
I think there's a lot to be said about the two forms of learning you mentioned. As far as experience goes, I agree education and teaching should include an exchange of experience. However, I think there's more to be said about the former method of learning you mentioned, i.e. learning from pain. In my experience, the lessons I take away from a painful situaion, be it a physical pain or an emotional pain, are somehow more meaningful and far reaching. So perhaps as teachers, it could be useful to prepare students for situations where they find themselves pained; how to deal with it and how to make the situation purposeful.
ReplyDeleteI agree that those are two great ways of fundamental learning. I believe that in my experience with younger kids that it is easier to tell them what to do and see what happens. This might not always be the best desicion though. Sometimes we need to let the student figure out on their own what the correct solution is and they will suffer their own consequence if they make the wrong decision. By then naking their own desicion they are more then likely to learn the lesson better then if I had told them what to do.
ReplyDeletethis approach of the two ways to learn seems correct. I wonder at what point a person moves from the experimentation phase (good or bad result) and to the listening phase (one might say, the step of understanding)where input is requested prior to action. What puzzles me, however, is the premise that learning is a cumulative activity, built sequentially one piece onto another until the subject matter is usable in solving real world problems. If what I learn is wrong at an earlier stage, how good or how valuable is any learning that builds upon that incorrect building block? The teacher's role must be, perhaps, with using many techniques or approaches, to achieve a good sturdy building block fro the person to buil upon with later experiences.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that an individual is constantly learning new things, be it in school or experiencing life. While formal education is being done in schools with teachers, informal education is done while experiencing life. The first way to learn that you described is experienced in our earlier times in life either formal or informal education. The second way that you described is experienced more as we get older and it can be formal or informal education as well.
ReplyDeleteI like this a lot. I think one of the most important things we need to remember as we teach young people is that we are not only giving them concrete information. We (should be) teaching students how to apply the information. I don't think this means we need to be able to come up with a real life example for every single question (though the more we can the better!), but more importantly I believe is that we are giving students tools so that they will be prepared to apply the information we have given them when the time comes. Similar to your example: we don't necessarily need to explicitly tell a physics class that jumping off a bridge, but hopefully somewhere along the line someone has educated those students about decision making. This, coupled with the information gained in physics class, should cause the student to make a positive decision. We are not just teachers, we are educators, and we need to take that title seriously.
ReplyDelete