automatic doors and scanners and scales and deli ticket machines are and all the different kinds of fish and lobsters andJust live life amazed. 🙂
how many different sounds you can hear when you close your eyes and
the man wearing a polka dot bow tie and
how high up the cereal is stacked (lift her up to get one🙂) and
whether there are more tie shoes or slip ons on the people in the store and
how you can draw pictures on the inside of the glass doors of the freezer after they're opened and they frost over and
whether the different coffee beans and candles and apples smell different and
whether she likes blueberries or raspberries or blackberries better and
how many different kinds of circle cereal there are and
how the different types of potatoes feel and
whether people say Hi when you say Hi to them and
how many different kitties or different types of pets there are on the products in the pet food aisle and
whether the stories in the Weekly World News are true or not (well, maybe for an older kid since at 3 *anything* is possible) 🙂 and
whether you recognize the Muzak version of the song playing and....
Learning is defined not just as sucking in information about something the child is interested in. Learning is also figuring out the big picture and how things connect. Figuring out how stuff works, figuring out how people work, making connections, seeing patterns. This is a mechanical, biological process. It's how humans—all learning animals really—naturally learn, how kids are born learning.
Natural learning is like a doorway. We can't change the doorway but we can change the outside world so kids can more easily reach what intrigues them.
Some people, such as those who are naturally drawn to rules, who live under limitations accept the rules and stick to them.
They live in fear and the rules are like talismans that will keep the boogeyman away. What happens when they are faced with new situations that they don't have rules in place for? People often extrapolate from the nonsense and extend the rules. But rational thought would reveal shoddy foundations for decision making.
If the reasons behind rules make sense, then there isn't a reason to make a rule. But people who follow rules aren't learning how to make decisions. They are only learning to follow someone else's rules.
If the reasons behind rules are nonsense, then people memorize nonsense and use that as a foundation for decision making.
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If a parent has found something that works for their family without understanding why it worked and how much personality played in it, then for others it's little better than rolling dice and picking some technique at random.
On the other hand, those who are living examined lives. thinking about and discussing why something works in the context of growing relationships, that's way better than dice! And no one should swallow what's said uncritically. They should take it in, turn it over, ask questions and examine it for themselves.
Critical examination is better for reaching clear goals than pretty sentiments of "following the heart" and "mom knows best."
Learning that's pulled in will look like play. It will look like kids engaged with what interests them. That might be a video game or helping rake the yard or TV shows or getting a job to earn money or taking classes in college.
The unnerving thing is that it looks like very little is going in! But the important-to-learning part happens inside: kids pull in information to use it for reasons that matter to them. They use it to solve problems. They use it to create and test theories of how the world works. What you use, sticks with you.
If a parent has found something that works for their family without understanding why it worked and how much personality played in it, then for others it's little better than rolling dice and picking some technique at random.
A collection of bad ideas: "Support"
A collection of good ideas: my Joyce page
