The early years of a child’s life are so important. It is a special time where children are beginning to explore the world. They are able to attain so much knowledge but that does not mean that their little brains should be stuffed with a bunch of information. Children learn best through hands on experiences and playing. In a school setting where children are mostly silent and playtime only accounts for 20 minutes of the day, children’s need for play and socialization is overlooked. Whatever happened to learning being fun? It seems that the fun has been replaced by worksheets and a tough curriculum. This does not exactly send the message to children that this is a fun, nice place to be. It is understandable to want children to succeed in life but by forcing them to do work inappropriate for their age, they are not likely to want to stay in school, furthering them from a brighter future.
I am not the type of person who learns well from sitting and listening to lectures. To tell the truth, I get a little bored and uninterested. I wonder if that is how children feel when they are made to do work that is not the most interesting. Children learn best through play, after all playing is what they do best. What is even better is that by having hands on experiences and taking part in activities that are interesting and age appropriate children are more likely to have a postitive learning experience and may be more enthusiastic to participate in future activities.
It may not always be the easiest task to come up with ways of teaching children but it is important to take into consideration children’s interests and abilities. Learning should be fun and more children and even adults would like school more if it was fun and enjoyable. Eventuall children will learn new things and skills, we do not need to have them perfected all at once.
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Hi Kawai,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you in terms of lectures -- I often find myself interested at first and then begin to turn off the ideas. I remember being in a online statistics course complete with lectures online -- I could never understand what was going on because the lectures would become blurry after the first few minutes. I wonder if teachers consider this when they teach -- is there a connection to the students? How does the teacher know the student is connecting with the information? Is it in the way the student connects the information to herself or himself? Is it in the questions or ideas shared? Or is it something else?
If educators consider children's play, how might the teacher know the child is thinking and connecting through play?
Jeanne
Hi!
ReplyDeleteYes, what's wrong with having fun. I do believe children need play to explore and experiment things on their own. Children grow faster when they have the opportunity to do things independently and with other peers. When children are forced to do things, most of normal humans resist it and go the other way. For example, children are forced to do worksheets. Children are forced to do things a certain way that they feel smothered.
But why do we do these things when we know how children will act to it? Why do we still force children to do test when we know they will feel discourage?
Hi Kawai!
ReplyDeleteI can see how important playtime is for children in education. But as a teacher in elementary education, we only have limited time in a day to teach our students our lesson plans. Now, with Furlough Fridays, our lesson plans hours have shorten even more. Also, it’s so easy to shorten playtime hours, because it’s the only time we can cut. So, here’s my question: How can we balance learning time and playtime with only limited time?