Focus On Learning - October, 2013

I'm reading the book Read for the Fun of It by Caroline Feller Bauer so I can implement some of the activities in our curriculum in third grade. In chapter seven I came across the sentence, "The concern of teachers to "teach" writing sometimes overwhelms the fun of it all." I started thinking about that. I've decided that statement can be applied to any subject, and to teaching in general. Our concern to "teach" our children can overwhelm us and make us focus on "teaching" instead of on "learning".

  

I made a big mistake this last year. Kim was doing her first research project. She had chosen to learn about penguins. She was so excited to learn all about them. We went to the library and found five books that were at her reading level. On the way home and the next few days she was reading the books and telling me the things she was learning. Then I pulled out the 3 x 5 cards for notes and envelopes to categorize them. Suddenly, she was no longer interested in penguins. It was no longer interesting and fun -- it was a chore. Looking back, I didn't handle it well. I was focused on teaching her how to write note cards, organize them, and write a report while Kim was focused on the fun of learning about God's interesting creatures. If I could do it over again, I would put the 3 x 5 cards and envelopes away and let her just read the books. Then ask her questions, such as, "What do you remember about what penguins eat?" Have her write some sentences about it. Encouraging her to go back to the books if she didn't remember. And have her draw some pictures to go with her paragraphs. 

Does Kim need to learn to use 3 x 5 cards to take notes as she reads, categorize them, and write a report from them? Yes. Does she need to learn it all in second grade? No!!! If I had stopped my teaching plan and gone with her learning plan, then in third grade when she was doing a report about frogs (or whatever it turns out to be), I could have said, "Remember last year when you were doing your report about what penguins eat and you had to keep going back and looking in the books? Well, this year you are learning about what frogs eat and it might be easier to write down what you learn as you read it rather than going back and searching through the books for the informaton again. Here are some cards to write on.

I need to remember that her learning is what is important and that we have ten more years to get my teaching done.

I know that every aspect of our children's education isn't going to be fun for them. Our children are gifted in different ways and while one thinks math is fun another thinks science is fun, and I don't think diagramming sentences could ever be fun.

But if our focus is on their learning rather than on our teaching, I'll bet we could come up with ways to make even their disliked subjects more interesting.