Brian Lamb has a new post up that was inspired by meeting Dr Sugata Mitra. For those who’ve not heard of Dr Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” project, Brian has the best links (including the TED Talk on the subject).
This is the interesting point for me:
Dr. Mitra is convinced that these methods cannot work for adults. Based on my own instinct and experience, I have to reluctantly agree with him. Why not? And what would adults need to unlearn in order to learn the way these kids do? I again find myself thinking that the teaching of skills is less important than changing attitudes – but I have no idea how best to do so.
Abject Learning: The hole in the wall: the holes in my thinking and my life.
I think this does work for adults, but perhaps we don’t recognize it. If there’s a difference between kids and adults, it’s the driver. A kid sees something new and says “Ooo, what’s this? Can I play with it?” An adult says, “Oh, great. Can I avoid this for the moment while I deal with the urgent problems of the day?”
The difference is that a kid will see how this new thing — whether it’s an idea, a device, or a process — can be adopted, adapted, or otherwise integrated into his or her life. They’ll poke at it a little bit to see if there’s anything interesting there and then make a decision. An adult will have to be shown that it’s useful before they’re willing to invest the time to learn about it. For many adults (and I’m not sure that maybe it’s “most” adults), the demands on time and attention are so overwhelming that they just can’t add another thing without dropping something. Yet, when they need to know something new, they need to know it in a hurry. How to buy a car? How to finance a house? What are the employment regulations in my new state? How can I cut calories, reduce fat, get the doctor off my case, and not want to lay down in traffic?
I’m not sure that Brian isn’t right about the dichotomy between skills and attitudes, but I also wonder if the issue is that we’re so tied up in teaching “core competencies” and “required knowledge” that we forget to teach people how to learn and how important it is to be constantly scanning the horizon for new things to learn about.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:32 am
It comes as no surprise to me that children can teach themselves. Anthropologic history would tell us as much. The first humans did not have organized schools or teachers, yet all we have today came through the process of self organized learning. They learned to make tools and utlize their enviroment to meet their needs. Einstein actually mentioned in a address one time, altough I can’t recall when or where, that modern mad was disconnected from the world. He said something to the effect of historically the first humans were able to make weapons such as the bow and arrow and understand its workings, modern man may know how to use something but have little knowledge of its working because he does not need to know.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Sorry to post twice, I accidenlty hit the submit button.
Finishing my thought…….
It seems that while I many people know how to use technology, they understand it differently because it wasn’t a discovery type of learning. We learn what we need to learn about computers so we can complete the task that we need. The children learned about computers simply so they would know how to operate them. This self organizing group way of learning is very interesting and I think would work well for younger childern, however our schools are not set up for this type of self discovery, Why? Because it is not orderly and schools today thrive on order. This could also work well though with both children and adults through distance learning. The first few weeks of class was somewhat like that. Many of us had never blogged nor knew about gators or MUDs. Alot of it was learned on our own through trial and error and then learning about the way all the new tools worked so that we could participate.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
This is what is missing in classrooms – the opportunity to learn what the student values. The agenda for my 4th grade class has been set at the federal, state, and local level to the point that I have become a messenger – forwarding the information it is deemed important that my students know. There is nothing wrong with the information in and of itself but the opportunity to discover for the sake of knowing is absent. It is a constant struggle to preserve the love of learning while teaching to the current expectation.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I agree with Monica. The lack of student choice is frustrating to me. I also grow frustrated daily with my lack of options as an instructor as well. I had an hour-long meeting last week with my lead teacher and the principal where I essentially said “I have come to the end of my ideas, and I need to know why we have to do it this way and what can I do to change it.” I teach special needs kids, and the requirement that they keep a modified pace with the rest of the students is a daily hindrance to me. If we were able to self-pace the instruction, I could do so much more. But I have to do what the state tells me to do.
January 17th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
This post made me laugh when I read that adults have to be told why something is important or how it is useful before they will invest time to use whatever new thing has come their way. It is too true for me. I wouldn’t compare myself to a heart or brain surgeon, but I think that I lead a packed life. I would love to learn more new things, and I do everyday, but I need to know which things to focus on because there is so much that a person can try to learn. Too much, in my own opinion.
I would also have to consider and partially agree with the statement about focusing too much on content and not enough on teaching children how to learn and think for themselves. Our school is trying to address this by having teachers work on questioning skills and encouraging higher order of thinking in the classroom. The problem that I am having is teaching the content, which is still as important (I will edit my reasons as a non-tenured teacher), but I feel like I have to add more to my already full plate in order to teach my students how to think and learn. I know that there has to be a solution to teaching content with attitude, how to learn, and how to think, but can it be taught without compromising any of them? I will try.