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Do you know what makes your child's heart race?
Do you know what is their personal passion?
Do you know what intrigues their insatiable curiosity...
More than anything else in existence?
More importantly, how often do they get to focus on, or experience, this interest? With more and more people turning to ‘home based learning' ... often referred to as ‘home - schooling' ... both in Australia and overseas, the question is often raised about the content of the curriculum covered ... just what do they ‘do' all day? In the early ‘pre-school' years, children use the tool that is most appropriate to them at their stage of development - the medium of ‘play,' to learn about the world around them. They explore, question, develop, create, devise, contemplate, role play ... the list of sensory and mentally stimulating skills could go on and on ... Play is natural, multi-faceted, and maximises time and resources.
In fact, we as adults could take a lesson in problem solving and creative thought though the exposure of even one short stint in a ‘play driven' world! So in their playfulness, do they actually ‘learn' anything?
Is their time spent in non - formal open ended play actually developing any skills or enhancing their knowledge?
More importantly, can children learn in an unstructured home based environment? The answer is ‘yes'.
As Lisa Rivero writes in her article ‘Debunking the myths of home schooling':
A normal school schedule plus extra-curricular activities and homework allows the classroom-schooled child little time to hear much less follow her own internal drummer. What children do get to focus on is the very things that interest them, things that may not be touched on in a formal educational setting due to the curriculum constraints that often seem to be ‘a mile long and an inch deep'. Instead they can probe, query, verbalise, conceptualise. We then become the ‘facilitators', involved in mind mapping their ideas, providing the resources they require to refine their skills and achieve their goals including reference materials, planning / recording materials, toys, dress ups, household items etc etc ... We equip them with the ‘tools' that they need to focus, explore and investigate their chosen interest. They are free to follow their own ‘internal drummer' ... and further still, self pace their learning of each rhythm. They can add the twist of drum syncopation, play vibrantly and LOUDLY!!! ... or tap consistently and adamantly away perfecting the skill of drumming as a technique unto itself. And what does this look like in real terms? Maybe a dinosaur delighted ‘archaeologist in the making' who explores plaster cast fossils, mud swamps, classifying their collection according to colour or characteristics or eating preferences ... Maybe through the eyes of a young brass instrument musician, who longs to collect and create replica tubas, trombones and trumpets, delights in dancing to jazz and swing and scans the internet researching how metal is moulded to make such a resonant sound ...
Maybe allowing a visual learner who soaks in every waking moment in a fabulously rich photography phase that heightens their senses, explores light and reflection and helps them grapple with size and position ...Maybe it is a future environmentalist who aims to educate those around them through the creation of a National Park featuring labelled rivers of flowing materials, pillow rocks and hand written labelled flora and fauna, in an attempt to save the sycamore and sloth ... Maybe it is a look at life in times long past through the eyes of an informed young historian. The block construction of Camelot, the representation of a family shield and the creation of a shop of everything possible a knight may wish to purchase for use in day to day life, complete with swords, helmets, goblets ... Yes, all of this ... and more! Home based learning in this situation is a real and vibrant learning medium that enthuses all involved ... both child and adult. When organised in a child directed natural learning style, it allows children to fully explore their interests, clarify their thoughts and enhance their personal potential, as it has no predetermined time frame, adult proposed agenda or rigid resource boundaries. It opens up avenues for children who are asynchronous in their development to self - challenge, refine their skills and verbalise their findings. It allows them to ‘follow their internal drummer ...' and penetrate their very being with beautiful music. Only registered users can write comments.
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