(Adapted from Whitaker, P. (1995). Managing
to Learn: aspects of reflective and experiential learning in schools.
London : Cassell.)
| Pre-reading questions:
•
Do you believe that your learners are ‘empty vessels' that
you need to try and fill as their teacher?
• How many of your learners do
you think genuinely want to learn, and, how many do you think
are not at all interested in learning?
• Do your learners actively engage
with the process of teaching and learning in your classroom,
or are they passive?
• Are you always in control of
the process of teaching and learning in your classroom?
|
Whitaker starts his book by saying: “ There has
been a tendency to perceive learning as something that others do
to us rather than as something we do for ourselves” (p.1). This
view of learning views the child as an empty vessel, a bit like
a jug, which is gradually filled by inputs from the adult world
over the years of schooling. Many adults then judge success by how
quickly and fully this filling up process occurs.
Such views of learning take little notice of what
is already in the child's mind, and what potentials already exist
in the child. What is needed today is a much more optimistic view
of the child's ability to make his or her own way in the world.
| Instead of believing that learners
are empty vessels who would not be filled with knowledge and
understanding unless the teacher poured it in, it would be more
helpful to the process of learning and teaching if we believed
that learners have a natural potential to learn, a will to learn,
and an ability to learn. If we believed this, then teachers
would be more of a guide, a stimulus, or a facilitator of knowledge
and skills to their learners. |
Whitaker quotes a number of more positive views
of children's learning. For example Diana Whitmore likens learning
to waking up: “Learning should be a living process of awakening
– a series of creative steps in unfoldment” (in Whitaker, 1995,
p.1).
Key words in understanding
the learning process, in the above paragraph, are:
• Awakening: the emerging/the
start of an awareness in someone
• Unfoldment: a developing/an
opening out |
Every child is born with resources for successful
growth, and Violet Oaklander, a famous specialist in child development
says:
Children are our finest teachers. They already
know how to grow, how to develop, how to learn, how to expand
and discover, how to feel, laugh, cry and get mad, what is right
for them and what is not right for them, what they need. They
already know how to love and be joyful and live life to its fullest.
To work and be strong and full of energy. All
they need is the space to do it.
Whilst traditional approaches viewed the child
as dependent on the teacher, who would direct and control learning,
more recent theorists have found that children strive to make sense
of the world, and to organise their thinking.
| Traditional approaches to the process of
learning and teaching saw learners as passive receivers
of knowledge. In contrast to this approach, modern theorists
see the learner as playing an active role
in the process of learning. Learners are believed to have the
in-built (already existing) ability to want to
take hold of new knowledge and skills, and build up their understanding
of the world. |
Whitaker writes that a belief in the child's natural
potential to learn will then require a different role of the educator:
“to stimulate and encourage this awesome potential and provide the
conditions and resources for its healthy growth and development”
(p.3).
Key words in understanding the teaching
process, from the above paragraph, are:
• Stimulate: to encourage to
start or progress further
• Encourage: to give someone
the confidence to do something / to stimulate someone by approval
or help |
He goes on to emphasise learning as a creative
process where the learner is willing to try out new things, to experiment
and test new ideas. He quotes the words of Schiller (in ibid. p.2):
To young people the world is one. They are
active, they are curious, they want to explore and experience.
They run from one part of the field of experience to another,
quite regardless of the fences we put round what we call subjects.
Such recent thinking has led to wider and more
integrated concepts of education and learning.
Whitaker (1995, pp.4-5) then goes on to cite the
work of Day and Baskett who propose the following 10 guidelines
for designing educational experiences:
- Learners are voluntary participants in learning;
they engage in it as a result of personal choice. (The system
can insist that children attend school, it cannot insist that
they learn. This remains a voluntary act of the learner).
Key words in understanding learners' roles
in the learning process, are:
• Voluntary participants
____________________________________________________________________ |
Voluntary: done or undertaken by free
choice
Participant: someone who is actively involved
|
- A relationship of mutual respect needs to
be established between participants and teachers if the optimum
conditions for effective learning are to be established. It is
also essential for teachers to recognize that they too are learners,
capable of learning from the different experiences of class members.
Traditionally teachers were believed to
have all the knowledge and the learners to have very little
knowledge, if any at all. Power, therefore, lay completely
in the hands of the teacher. Modern theories of teaching and
learning believe the best ‘space' or learning environment
which ensures effective learning, would be one in which the
teacher and the learner are equal partners in
the whole educational process. |
- Organized learning is a collective experience
and needs to be viewed by teachers as the building of relationships
of trust.
- A vital feature of learning is the process
of action and reflection - looking back on past experiences in
order to make decisions about the future.
- Teachers need to remember that most formal
learning takes place in an organizational setting. This adds complexities
and special challenges to the process of change.
- The process of personal change can be difficult
and painful. As a result of previous experience, some learners
find it very hard to accept help and guidance. Trying to change
their ways of working can involve loss of confidence and self-esteem.
- Differences in the social, economic and cultural
backgrounds of learners need to be respected and taken into account
in designing and developing learning activities.
- The motivation to learn is a key consideration.
Learners bring a wide variety of needs, hopes and aspirations
to the learning process.
- One of the most important contributions a
teacher can make to this learning partnership is to promote and
facilitate a climate of critical thinking in which learners are
encouraged to lay open to examination their thoughts and feelings
about their learning.
- A key aim of those involved in the management
of learning is to encourage self-direction. This involves gradually
reducing dependence on the teacher and supporting the learner's
own aspirations, learning strategies and self-evaluation.
This list is a valuable beginning for educators
who wish to think about key ingredients for successful learning,
and to consider the direction we need to take in future educational
developments.
It is necessary for learning to be based on experience.
When learners experience something new, they then actively construct
a set of mental schemas to incorporate the experience, and to store
the experience in memory. The learners' social interactions in this
process are important contributors to the learning, emphasising
the role of motivation and emotional factors in learning. Thus,
if an experience was pleasant and enjoyable, it is likely to be
remembered more positively than something which was difficult for
the learner. When learning is experienced as too difficult, or where
the learner feels incompetent, the learner is less likely to wish
to repeat the experience, or engage again with the material.
As educators have tried to improve schooling,
there has been a focus on the content of the curriculum and the
way in which schools are structured. Such initiatives have often
been bureaucratic and imposed by education authorities, without
considering the results of such change on the learner. The jargon
of the authorities and the increased demands of educators have not
had extensive impact on the quality of education in schools. This
is because a vital factor – the process of learning – has been neglected.
The process of learning is concerned with the
ways in which learning is organized and the means by which learners
are helped to apply their potential to educational tasks and experiences.
In recent years, scarce attention has been given to the dynamics
of learning, the methodologies of teaching and to the vital relationship
between learners and their teachers in the classrooms of schools.
It is essential to give attention to such vital factors as:
personality: how children
acquire a self-concept which reflects their successful experience
as learners, both in the years before school and throughout their
careers in formal education;
aspirations: how learners
are encouraged to define and pursue their own learning ambitions
and to incorporate them comfortably with the curriculum framework
of the school;
needs: how the emotional
and psychological nourishment so vital to supporting the inherent
potential to learn can be supplied within schools and classrooms;
relationships: how
learners can work together to develop the skills and qualities
necessary to becoming successful learners, and how learners and
teachers can build creative mentoring partnerships to ensure sustained
educational growth and development;
interactions: how
learners can be guided to use dialogue with their friends and
teachers to explore and examine the challenges of the learning
experience and so develop a sharp awareness of their own developing
skills and abilities;
values: how learners
can be helped to develop a strong, satisfying and lasting relationship
with learning and come to value the place of education in their
lives;
behaviour: how learners
can be supported in becoming increasingly able to take responsibility
for the choices they make, the actions they pursue and the consequences
they encounter;
experience: how learners
can be presented with opportunities to reflect on their experience
of learning in order to make sense of it and so as to make considered
choices about learning behaviour in the future.
These elements contribute in significant ways
to the creation of satisfactory conditions for learning and teaching
and to the capacity of learners to acquire and develop knowledge,
skills and qualities in the collective setting of the classroom.
|