All children like learning.But do they really like school?

A parent once asked for help on how to stress the importance of school to children. This question led me to think about the following.

School may not be important, but learning surely is. Encouraging children to learn is not really the problem. All human beings are born with an innate desire to learn and with a curiosity about their environment and everything in it. If we observe any baby from the moment he is able to open his eyes and move his body he begins to explore; he wants to touch, he responds to noises around him. As the baby grows he is anxious to walk and talk so that his world can be expanded. Many adults express frustration when the child reaches the age of asking *why* at just about every turn. When a child recognizes that an adult is willing to pay quality attention to him, he never runs out of questions about everything under the sun; everything that interests him that is. The point is that children want to learn. The problem is that this desire to learn gets interfered with early on when the situation is not right for learning.

Learning best takes place under certain conditions-:

• When the material to be learned is interesting and relevant to the learner.

• When the learning is enjoyable or at best not stressful, i.e. there is no fear or threat to the learner.

• When the learning environment is a nurturing, validating and comfortable one.

• When the learner is allowed a certain amount of autonomy over the learning process and how the learning is expressed.

• When the learner's emotional well-being is taken into account.

Before we try to convince a child to go to school and enjoy it, we must look at the conditions there. Are school systems set up for learning to take place? Or are the children bored, frustrated, scared (of failure, or punishment etc.), uncomfortable, made to feel stupid, forced to learn things that mean nothing to them, crammed with excessive curricula, and punished by unfair testing? How do you convince a child that this is good for him or her? Chances are that you cannot. In addition, the reasons that most societies present for educating their young people have to do with fitting into that society and contributing to building and maintaining that society, and not with the child's interests, abilities and talents. The reasons are completely irrelevant to the child and all the arguments that may be offered cannot be processed by this young mind.

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