Lesson 1: Natural Learning
Natural Learning
“Most of us are so used to thinking of education as that formal process of lectures, textbooks, exercises, and exams that we forget how much we learn from our surroundings without even thinking about it. Infants and toddlers learn concepts of light and dark, shape and color, motion and inertia–hundreds of concepts so obvious that we seldom think of them as having to be learned at all. As they grow older, kids don’t suddenly drop this informal style of learning in favor of the more explicit approach; they (and most adults) simply become less aware of it.” - Mary Griffith, author of The Unschooling Handbook.
Young children learn through activities that they choose and engage in freely (aka playing.) As long as they do not go to school or otherwise experience a coercive teaching environment, they will continue to learn through playing, having fun, experimenting, etc.. Many of us have heard that learning and fun don't go together or that learning is not all fun and games, but I will challenge this. Why do so many people think learning must be difficult?
"Usually it looks like we're just playing around. When it doesn't look like we're playing, I work on it. Unschooling works best when we're playing around. Much of our play involves words, music and humor. It has to do with merrily connecting the dots, in a real world way, and in a mental-connection way." - Sandra Dodd, radical unschooling advocate.
Serious, as in important, meaningful, and fun, play may include fantasy, make-believe, poetry, song, drama, and art. These activities are our children’s ways of exploring and understanding the world. We should take seriously this serious play.
"In fantasy we have a way of trying out situations, to get some feel of what they might be like, or how we might feel in them, without having to risk too much." - John Holt, unschooling advocate and author of many books on education.
No one can truly claim that they taught us to eat and walk and talk (although they may have helped and supported us), because we learned these things on our own through our natural desire and compulsion to learn. ‘Teaching’ cannot truly create learning, because learning can only occur within the learner. In other words, learning is an active undertaking of the learner rather than a passive reception from a teacher.
We must respect the way our children learn naturally, and trust that they want to learn, and that they don't require outside motivation or pressure. Because teaching is a coercive practice, children naturally rebel against it. This coercion is disrespectful and it threatens their self-confidence. Because we are social creatures, we do not require coercion (or threats) in order to want to fit in, and so to undertake learning to fit in.
"Years before I began teaching, I spent an evening with parents of young children in a home in which nothing was said or done without some kind of 'teaching' purpose. Every word or act carried its little lesson. It was nightmarish, the air quivered with tension and worry. I could not wait to leave." - John Holt.
Your children have interests as you do. Just as you have freely chosen to take this course, your children freely choose to engage in activities from which they learn (whether they realize they are learning or not.) Not only do they learn more from these chosen activities, but they also enjoy them as they would not enjoy activities assigned to them for the purpose of learning something.
"The most important question any thinking creature can ask itself is, 'What is worth thinking about?' When we deny its right to decide that for itself, when we try to control what it must attend to and think about, we make it less observant, resourceful, and adaptive, in a word, less intelligent, in a blunter word, more stupid." - John Holt.
We all learn by exploring, trying things, asking questions, and asking for help when we need it. As you embrace the practice of trusting your children to learn without ‘teaching,’ you may fear talking to them about their interests. However, as long as your children are interested in what you have to say, say it. Share with them all that you know, and help them find the answers to their questions that you don’t know.
"The difference is between talk which is done for the pleasure itself, with learning only a possible and incidental by-product, and talk which has no purpose other than to produce learning." - John Holt.
Children are born social. It is their nature. Part of this nature is the desire to fit in with those around them. They accomplish this by learning all that they can about the people and the world around them. We need to keep our kids close, to spend a lot of time with them, to have fun together, so that they can feel safe enough to step away from us to learn, knowing that they can return at any time.
