How to Optimize Learning for Kids

chillibreeze writer — Vipin Arora

Writing for kids - Resources and articles

The other day, I accompanied my son to his school to attend the PTA meet. While we were waiting patiently for our turn to talk to the teacher, I found the harried teacher listening to the interminable rant of another student’s mother. The mother in question was complaining about her son faring miserably in the half-yearly exams and how he didn’t read much, did not understand a thing and had problem memorizing answers.

“Excuse me,” I interjected, though immediately I was conscious of the glares of the attendees turning towards me, making me regret my decision to intervene. But I went on, finishing what I meant out to say. “Does he not read enough, has problem in understanding the things he reads, or does he have problems memorizing?”

“What’s the difference?” asked the disgruntled mother, half-turning towards me.

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Reading essentially is an act of data input into the mind by the reader. The more a child reads, the more likely he is to imbibe the essence of what he reads, the more likely he is to understand the input by relating the data with the existing data available in his mind. The more likely he is to extrapolate that data in his mind, comprehend various aspects of it and experiment with the data input. Whether that reading is of arts, sciences, mathematics, languages or any other subject under the sun, the more the data input the more possibility is there that the child will be able to grasp it by interdisciplinary cross-referencing.

Understanding what the child reads is essentially data processing by the mind. It requires special abilities and most children in Indian schools falter in this important aspect of learning. Understanding a subject, particularly subjects like sciences and humanities, requires imagination and experimentation where books and classroom teaching alone do not suffice. Almost all schools do provide science labs but they too are restricted to copybook experiments and not much effort is put into relating sciences to our day-to-day life events and experiences.

The problem with subjects of humanities is more severe. We do not have any developed methods of experimenting with subjects like history or civics and no wonder students end up hating these subjects and relying only on learning by rote to pass through these subjects. The students are rarely lucky enough to get one school expedition to a historical place or city and there too they experience a very minor part of history unfold before them.

Another important aspect of learning is memorizing. It really means our ability to give output to what we have read, learnt or understood. This output can either be oral or written, memorized or extempore. This special ability segregates the outstanding from the average, the genius from the lay students. But here again, the tendency to reward copybook answers, to judge the student by his ability to memorize the answers rather than to understand the subject thoroughly mars the basic purpose of examinations. The students, who write the same answers as they were taught to write in the classrooms, word-by-word, are given preference over students who try to experiment with the language to produce their own answers.

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The above analysis explains the cognitive part of learning. However, it only gives half the answers to the questions the lady had in her mind about her child’s progress in the classroom. The second problem that many children face is not cognitive but behavioral. Sometimes the students simply refuse to read enough, finish their school work on time or prepare diligently for their tests or exams. They may be hyperactive in all other activities in schools or at home but when it comes to deal with the words (or numbers), they just blank out and fare poorly.

Such problems occur when the child is unable to relate himself to his environment and/or he has difficulty in relating himself to the vast academic curriculum prescribed to him. The child simply fails to understand the relevance of all those reams of pages of books and copies given to him to read or write on; he finds it incongruous to the normal, happy life that he is leading and enjoying. Such children need special reorientation programs to help them understand the relevance of all the education being imparted to them. They need to see clearly how it relates to the life around them. They need more exposure to interactive learning than copybook education to help them regenerate their interest in formal education.

UNESCO’s International Academy of Education has summarized “some of the important results of recent research on learning that is relevant for education. They attempt to integrate research coming from diverse areas of psychology, including educational, developmental, cognitive, social and clinical psychology. This research has offered us new insights into the learning process and the development of knowledge in many subject-matter areas. As a result, curricula and instruction are changing in schools today. They are attempting to become more student-centered than teacher-centered, to connect the school to real-life situations, and to focus on understanding and thinking rather than on memorization, drill and practice.”

A booklet “How children learn” written by Stella Vosniadou and published by International Bureau of Education under the aegis of UNSECO prescribes following methods to make education more student-centric and interactive:

Avoid situations where the students are passive listeners for long periods of time.
Provide students with hands-on activities, such as experiments, observations, projects, etc.
Encourage participation in classroom discussions and other collaborative activities.
Organize school visits to museums and technological parks.
Allow students to take some control over their own learning. Taking control over one’s learning means allowing students to make some decisions about what to learn and how.
Assist students in creating learning goals that are consistent with their interests and future aspirations.

(Source: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications)

* * * * *

So every time a child is scrutinized by his peers—parents or the teachers—special care should be given to analyze which aspect of learning is the child weak in and which is his strong aspect. Like management trainees, all teachers must be taught about SWOT analysis—analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—of each individual child in the classroom so that specific measures could be taken to deal with specific problems of each child.

I know it is a tedious, Herculean task; but then bringing up children was never easy!

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Vipin writes for chillibreeze.

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