What We Know about Children and Learning: Is Anyone Paying Attention?

by Lorna McGrath | Family Resources, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, School Resources

I became frustrated and very disheartened at the way teachers were expected to treat the children in their classrooms and the environments in which children were placed to learn when I taught in conventional schools. And now, having left that environment decades ago, I continue to be appalled at seeing that nothing has changed except becoming more entrenched in pigeonholing children, insisting that memorization of facts and figures constitutes a ‘good’ education, and persisting in advancing the idea that adults know what and when children should be learning. So I began to question whether anyone outside of Montessorians were paying attention to what we know about children and learning.

It’s now been 110 years since Maria Montessori started her journey into the “discovery of the child.” Through her astute observations, adults began to see children differently than they had in the previous century. It might be wise for us to refresh our memories about her observations.

She saw that within groups of children there were social/emotional needs and ways of processing experiences and information that were characteristic of certain time periods in children’s growth and development. Learning about friendship, resolving conflicts, doing things for the good of all, enjoying activities that involve the senses, experiencing ideas and concepts in a hands-on way are all examples of patterns that she saw within groups of children and time periods. She called them sensitivities or sensitive periods. And, within those time periods, she saw the uniqueness of individuals; each child learned at her own pace, had her own interests, and had her own way of learning. Maria Montessori said that classrooms needed to be multi-age environments that allowed for individual, experiential learning and social interaction. She said that the adult’s role is one of a guide or facilitator, who prepares an enticing environment with many learning activities from which a child could choose.

Let’s take a look at some of the things she said regarding:

• Uniqueness:  “Look at the child. She did not say ‘a’ child, not ‘all’ the children but the child right there in front of you.”
• Interests:  “Little he cares about the knowledge of others; he wants to acquire knowledge of his own…to experience the world through his unaided efforts… Children want to find out things according to their interests and their time.”
• Learning:  The senses, being explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge… She saw that the senses were the key to learning for young children— to touch, to see, to taste, to hear, to smell, to experience!
• Choice: The child chooses what helps her to construct herself… Children must have the freedom to show us what they need and not be controlled by a one-size-fits-all curriculum.
• Mind: The mind of the young child is different from ours…When we recognize the limitations of reaching her through verbal instruction, then the whole concept of education changes. It becomes a matter of providing an appropriate environment, not forcing our words upon her ears… We talk, talk, talk, talk, talk too much—especially to young children. Children must be allowed the opportunity to experiment, manipulate, and try out ideas and concepts rather than become comatose from our lengthy lectures.

So, my question remained, “Is Anyone Paying Attention?” Gladly, I found that the answer is, “Yes.” A book called The Importance of Being Little by Erika Christakis, former early childhood educator at Yale Child Study Center and a graduate of Harvard University, was sent to me for review. Turns out, Ms Christakis is paying attention.

She says, in her book, that excellent early childhood education centers include adults who:

• Spend time building relationships with children;
• Pay a lot of attention to how children think;
• Connect how children think to how they communicate; and
• Fnd ways to help children express their thoughts and ideas.

Those bullets sound like the things that we do in our classrooms every day: building community through relationships and multi-year age groupings; observing; reflecting; listening to children; and asking reflective questions.

Ms Christakis also says that conventional school still clings to the false belief…that learning must come from somewhere outside of the child to be given, or withheld, by a qualified adult…. Montessorians agree that adults in classrooms, and I use the word classrooms broadly, are meant to be facilitators, guides, and observers, who ask questions rather than give right answers.

She says that it’s not enough to have knowledge of child development. Teachers must pay really careful attention to children… In fast paced conventional centers that are designed for one-size fits all curriculum and have one year age groupings, it is almost impossible to do. In our classrooms the curriculum is rich and widely varied. It can be expanded to include individual interests and skills. And, we have at least three years to cover it.

I also found a very powerful blog, “What the Modern World Has Forgotten about Children and Learning,” by Carol Black, writer and director of a documentary film—Schooling the World, who studied literature and education at Swarthmore College and UCLA. She wrote the blog in answer to a claim that, “Spontaneous reading happens for a few kids. The vast majority need (and all can benefit from) explicit instruction in phonics.” She responded specifically in regard to how children learn to read. However, many of her points can be taken more generally when we think of how children learn.

Ms Black sees conventional schools as unnatural environments for learning. She says that, People today do not even know what children are actually like. They only know what children are like in schools. She so aptly puts it, …collecting data on human learning in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behavior at Sea World.

Ms Black says that there are species-specific social structures. Human social structures include the following:

• Small, mixed-age communities;
• Engagement in meaningful activities;
• Inclusion of younger and older children and adults
• Immersion in the natural world;
• Freedom to move, play, and exercise; and
• Opportunity to observe, imitate and participate in adult work as they are ready.

As I read what Ms Black had to say I recognized, once again, that even though we have classrooms in Montessori schools, they are designed to look and feel more like home—with areas for preparing food and eating; areas and supplies for cleaning up; and outdoor areas for experiencing the natural world and for gardening. There are places for children to read—alone or with a friend. There are few, if any, large group lessons. Rather, there are individual children working on learning activities that interest them, small groups receiving an introductory lesson from a guide, or an older child giving a lesson to one or two younger children. There might even be a grandparent in the room, reading to children or listening to them read. It seems to me that I have just described a species-specific social structure as Ms Black would say.

I am encouraged by 110 years of paying attention to what children have been teaching us about how they learn, by Montessorians who are creating environments that support how they learn, and by finding people in the world outside of Montessori who understand children and who are advocating for a different kind of education than the conventional one that most children in the US experience.

References:

Wolfe, A. (1978). Look at the child. Parent Child Press.
Christakis, E. (2016). The importance of being little, Viking Press (an imprint of Penguin/Random House LLC)
Black, C. (2016). “What the modern world has forgotten about children and learning.”
Schoolingtheworld.org

Tomorrow’s Child / January 2017 / p 24