Do Children and Adults Learn in the Same Way? -- Two Views of Childhood
I want to discuss two views of childhood because they each make assumptions about how children learn...this is important!
VIEW #1
The first view believes that children, youth, and adults learn the same way so the curriculum and education methods are the same for adults and children. We assume children learn the same way as adults, so we try to mold children into an adult-type system.
VIEW #2
The second view believes that children, youth, and adults actually learn differently and that this must be taken into account in the setup of their educational environment and in the approach of their parents, teachers, and mentors.
Through a lot of study and personal experience, I believe that View #2 is correct. Children and adults actually learn differently. This affects how I choose to teach my children and the educational environment that I set up for them.
Fully Engaged Learning
There is a lot of debate over testing children as young as four...Professor Carlsson-Paige explains...“Young children have a really thrilling and complex way of learning, they’ve been learning since the day they were born,” she said. “We know from decades of research that young children learn actively, fully engaging their bodies and all their senses.”
For kindergarten and early grades, she said, a restricted and didactic curriculum inhibits these natural impulses, and leaves little time for how young children learn best: through hands-on experimentation and play. {Source}
Is Direct Instruction the Best Way to Teach?
There was a really interesting article where experimenters took two groups of children. The first group were taught how to use a toy; the second group discovered how to use a toy. Children who used the discovery method still figured out how the toy worked, but they found additional creative uses for the toy or short cuts that the children who were directly instructed didn't discover.
