Learning Requires Investment

Look around at what children are learning. Look at those things you learn easily, or stick with until you succeed. A vested or intrinsic interest is involved. A desire to succeed at something, either to satisfy a personal goal or to meet milestone. Even a desire to please can be a great motivator. All of these things inspire one to put aside discouragement, fear of failure, even initial disinterest, and put in the energy and effort required to succeed. Put a calculous book in front of a child, or a dry history book, and their eyes will glaze over. Talk most people about statistics and you will likely find yourself suddenly alone, or wish you hadn't brought up the subject. Talk about baseball stats, however, and you'll find interested, even enthusiastic people who can work the numbers like knitters work needles in a knitting clatch. Finding a way to make learning fun or at least relevant will more likely grab a student's interest. What is interesting? What is fun? I find just about every child I work with loves (or at least likes) pizza,M&Ms, or Reeses Pieces. All of these are great for fractions. Colored candies, or Legos, or any other colored thing of small size and interest can be useful in teaching ratios, probabilities. Cooking is also really useful for fractions and ratios. Recipes are full of them. Who doesn't love a good dessert, or a fun meal. They're also great for learning to follow directions. Gimmicks are not required to make learning fun, it just needs to be interesting; relevant. There are teachers who feel like they have to be entertaining because they think that's what is expected of them, like a comedian working an audience. Some teachers are naturally entertaining, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying entertainment is bad, it just isn't required. Too many programs and initiatives are constantly being thrown at districts, principles, and teachers, all for the sake of improving education. And who doesn't want it to be successful, for the children's sake? We are letting fear of failure drive our decisions, while we should be looking at what has been done well. We are so worried about being left behind that we're racing ahead in pouring rain without functional wipers! We need to narrow our focus, slow down, and reverse the current trend of centralization. Districts and teachers are so busy trying to integrate all of the standards and prescriptive measures, learning is actually being squeezed out. Students and teachers are being burned out.