How to teach kids?
class for preschoolers, which leads Janet Gill and the Greenbrook School in South Brooklyn, New Jersey, is playing in numbers. Without the teacher's advice, 20 children aged 5-6 years solve geometric puzzles, confidently operate with gaming cards and benefits for the account. At the round table, a few toddlers add bright cubes. Here is a little girl making a hexagon out of triangles, and other children, obviously interested, gather around and count how many triangles are needed.
Half an hour later, it's time to read. The counting material is removed, and the children are seated in a circle around Gill. In her hands she has a great book about the funny Mrs. Wishi-Washy, who really wants the animals on her farm to wash. Together with Gill, children recite cheerful verses. This is their favorite story, and they obviously enjoy it.
The reading is over, and Gill asks if anyone wants to reproduce in the faces some scenes from the story. A lot of hands are raised. The teacher chooses four, and now they are becoming diligent actors. In the class there is no hint of boredom.
All this is not like the lessons of writing, reading and arithmetic, which we remember in our school years. At school in South Brooklyn, as in most public and private schools in the United States, it is believed that children aged 5-8 years should be taught differently than older children. They realize that at this age active methods - games, participation in sketches - give the greatest effect in the learning process.
Teachers know that children of this age group develop at different rates, and the school must take this into account."We proceed from the fact that the program exists for the child, and not the child for the program," says methodologist Joan Warren. It is also believed here that it is important not only to give children knowledge, but also to educate their members of society.
Specialists call this method of teaching "development orientation".It is based on the data of scientists on how the process of cognition takes place in young children. These data are obtained as a result of research that has been conducted since the last century and especially intensively - the last 30 years. Many education-related organizations, including the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Councils for Education, have recently developed plans for the restructuring of education in kindergartens and the first three classes of the school. These plans reflect an important change: a winning understanding of the value of the young mind and how important it is not to hinder its development.
The results of the studies are so convincing that even an organization such as the Primary Education Council, which has always supported the traditional years, is changing its approach."The very idea of putting a textbook in front of a child and then keeping it for the whole day at a desk seems to me monstrous," reproves Pat Bart, deputy editor of the Bulletin "Primary Education," which publishes the council. While it is difficult to say how quickly the changes will take place, the number of schools they will cover. One thing is clear: we began to understand that early learning is of the utmost importance. Previously, attention was focused mainly on the problems of teaching older children, especially at the age of 13 years."It's like sticking a broken thing over a band-aid," says Ann Dillman, a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education. It is important that more and more parents are interested in what methods of teaching children are most effective. Scientists know these methods. But too often it happens that the theory and school practice are far from each other. Studying in primary classes is of special importance, so it is at this stage that the attitude of the child of Kolya is formed, to the teaching. When children get out of the home environment after the preparatory classes into the world of primary school, where competition is felt more, they begin to provide an opinion about their own capabilities.they feel not at the level, their hands may fall.
Children are born with the need to learn. The fact that an adult is a game for children is a real work, in the process of which they will know the world. Studies show that the most effective in teaching is the use of the natural desire of children to cognize the world through play.
And the 80-ies in many schools did just the opposite. The involvement was replaced by pressure."Pervachkov" was taught with the same methods as the children in the senior classes, homework, control, discipline. From primary school, parents are more demanding. By the mid-1980s, most of the three-four-year-olds had already received some education at home. Parents believed that these "veterans" would read already in the first year of their stay in the kindergarten. But the fact is that many four-five-year plans, no matter how many they are taught, are not yet ready to read, as, indeed, and carry out other teaching tasks that are easily performed by older children."We confuse the development of brain thinking abilities with the number of graduated classes," says Martha Denkla, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University. "The fact that a child goes to kindergarten does not mean that his brain has become" older. "A five-year-old child has the brain of a five-year-old child. "
Nevertheless, both the parents and the authorities of the districts demanded proof that the children were being taught something. In some places they went to extreme measures. In 1985, Georgia became the first state where 6-year-olds were required to take the exam for entry into the first grade. More than two dozen other states have introduced a similar law. At first, it was believed that this gives the children the incentive to successfully begin the teaching. However, as the inspector of the school education of the state of Werner Rogers admits, "we began to march on the wrong foot".Five-year-old children, accustomed to day-day work on coloring and singing songs, were planted for some forms to prepare for the exam."We almost spent a month trying to explain to the guys how they pass the exams," says Beth Higgins, a kindergarten teacher in a suburb of Atlanta.
The results of the pressure experienced by children from an early age have not slowed down. In kindergartens, children sweat over their homework. First-graders are given spelling control, while they still have not really learned to read. As a result, second graders already feel like losers."In this most important period of a child's life," writes David Elkind, in his book "Improper Upbringing," he strives for self-affirmation, which is normal. But often self-assertion proves difficult not only because of unsuitable methods of teaching, but also as a result of numerous grievances, griefs, feelings of uselessness that are associated with his coming to the world of a school where the spirit of rivalry reigns. "Adults in this state can try to find some explanation for their difficulties or correlate them with past experience. Children do not have such protection. Schools that demand too much too quickly lead children to failure.
So it should not be. Most specialists in the field of child development and communication of children at an early age believe that they can learn much more successfully, given their propensities. The most important component of the non-traditional approach to learning is active action. They do not need to give lectures. Children learn to reason and communicate their thoughts through participation in a conversation. However, as a rule, teachers tell students, and do not talk with them.
At the age of 10-11 years, children can sit quietly for a long time. However, children in their physical development are not ready for a long rest, and they need to move in the classroom."To sit still, the child must specifically try," Denkla says, "but so many children can not keep trying. For them, this requires too much energy. "Little children are more tired when they have to sit quietly and listen to the teacher than when they are allowed to move around the classroom. In short, when children actively participate in the teaching, it is much less boring for them.
At this age, according to experts, the development of speech should not be understood as the development of reading, writing and thinking skills taken separately. Children learn to reason and express themselves in conversation. Even before they master the letter or reading, they can easily dictate their stories to the teacher. Their first attempts at writing may be imperfect from the point of view of spelling - what is important is that they learn to convey their thoughts. However, in many schools, grammar and spelling are considered more important than content, and teachers use such boring texts that they can overtake sleep on anyone.
The public side has a very strong influence on academic progress. Children who have problems communicating with classmates can be among the lagging students, and they are the ones who drop out of school altogether. In the primary classes, as specialists believe, it is necessary to encourage not the individual work of children, but the work of groups. This allows teachers to identify those who find it difficult to make friends with someone."When children solve a common problem," says Lilian Katz, a professor at the University of Illinois at the University of Illinois, "they learn to work together, learn to disagree, argue, give way, relieve tension."
At this age, children begin to judge themselves in comparison with each other. Just as a one-year-old wants to walk, a six-year-old wants to live up to the expectations of adults. Children do not know that the efforts made and the result do not always correspond to each other. When, with great diligence, something fails, they can come to the conclusion that they are not capable of anything. A child whose confidence is undermined needs timely help from adults. Children with a normal level of intelligence can develop in different ways."What's good for one is not good for another child," says Dr. Perry Dyke, a member of the California Education Council. "We need to ensure that teachers find contact with the child, no matter what level of development. This requires great art. "Ernest Boyer and other researchers believe that it is not bad when students of both senior and junior classes are engaged in one classroom, which helps to avoid a backlog that greatly infringes on the child's ego. In such a mixed team, for example, a student of an older age who has something that does not get along well in school can improve his business by "training" as a mentor to younger students.
Making these principles work is not an easy task. Of the schools that took up the experiment, only a few did not back down. For 22 years working on an unconventional school program in Arlington High, Illinois."We were able to hold out so long thanks to the support of parents, the dedication of teachers and because the children were well-educated," says the school's director Mary Stitt.
Participation of parents is of particular importance in the transition of the school to non-traditional methods of teaching. Four years ago, such a transition was initiated at the primary school in Browneville, Virginia. Anne Norfold is the director of this school. Often parents come to help her. But not everything goes smoothly. Many teachers refused to work on the new method, they left school."One of the serious problems," says Norfold, "is the development of a program that any teacher could cope with, not Enthusiasts, who are ready to work 90 hours a week."After all, teachers are now required to take an active part in everything that happens in the classroom: authority is no longer an automatic attribute of the teaching profession - it must be won.
Tests are the easiest way to assess the knowledge of a class, but not always the most accurate. There are other ways to determine how children acquire knowledge. If they are interested in what they are doing at the lesson, they will most likely laugh, exchange cues with each other and with the teacher. Such communication is part of the process of assimilation."Some believe that there should be a solid game in the school, others a solid black work," says the professor from Illinois Katz. "But neither is right. In the classroom, there must be a balance between the spontaneously arising game situation and serious work directed by the teacher. The main thing is that the work of the intellect takes place in the classroom. "
In his book "Occupying the mind of a child" Katz describes the attendance of lessons in two primary schools. At the lesson all morning the children sadly drew the same picture: a traffic light. The teacher did not make the slightest attempt to connect the theme of the drawing lesson with anything from real life. In another school, the children "studied" the school bus. They covered him all up, figured out what was in it for what, talked about the rules of the road. In the classroom, they themselves glued the bus from the cardboard. The children enjoyed it, but they also wrote and solved problems, even arithmetic. Katz says: "When the parents' meeting was held, the teacher was going to tell in detail how each child is doing. Parents wanted to see the bus first, because the children spoke about it for weeks at home. "
This kind of education is necessary for children. And no other.