"Learning is a process of enculturation. Experience does not occur in a vacuum."
-John Dewey, 1938
These two sentences really resonated with me this week. The first refers to learning by becoming immersed in the culture, values, and behaviors of whatever you are trying to gain knowledge about. And the second is something I think should be hung up in every school across America! Experience and learning do not occur (at least efficiently) by sitting in a classroom and staring at your teacher talk all day. Students need to get out and experience life, nature, and their surroundings in order to really learn. If your class is learning about plants, take them outside! Let them feel the leaves and see them growing from the ground. Let them plant seeds and watch them grow. This is learning and this is something that will stick with them.
John Dewey (1859-1952) was a man who was way ahead of his time when it came to his ideas about teaching in the classroom. He went against the norms of his time (perhaps the norms that still exist today) by expressing his distaste for the "sage on stage" approach to teaching. He believed students should "learn by doing" not learn by reading about it or learn by watching a movie about it but learn by getting out and experiencing. His theory about teaching in the classroom made me think of the science teacher from the video we have viewed a couple of times in class. Wouldn't he have loved her?! I couldn't find that video to post but I did find these cuties experiencing science below, enjoy :)
Jeni,
ReplyDeleteI love your excitement for teaching by doing. I agree that more kids would be excited to learn if school connected more fluidly with the other parts of their life.
The video you used to show the kids learning by doing, though, made me wonder whether they actually learned the scientific concepts. They seemed more excited by the bubbles and the dried ice ("spookiness") rather than the reaction. Do you think sometimes "doing" can result in lower levels of learning if not coupled with "reading" or some type of background information?
That video sure was cute!
Thanks for posting on my blog! I think the important thing is to get kids interested in science, spark their curiosity, and motivate them to want to learn! Especially at the young age the kids in the video are. I do not think the scientific concepts are important for them to try to learn or memorize at such a young age. It is really interesting to me how we all have such different views on teaching at this point.
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