What is Childhood For?
Piaget had it right. The only way to teach children well is to understand what is happening at any stage of their lives—developmentally. It seems so obvious! You can’t teach most three-year-olds to tie their shoes (supposing that little kids have shoelaces anymore) because they lack the motor skills.
Why then is abstract math being taught to younger and younger grades? I think Piaget’s developmental stages are almost canon in educational theory, yet we hear of second and third graders learning abstract math concepts such as algebra. Piaget says that the abilities for abstract thinking start after age 11.
Why do teachers expect little children to sit still and silent for hours at a time? The nature of little children is to move, to be active—especially boys. What if part of the ADHD problems burgeoning in our schools is an incorrect pedagogical model: students sitting silently for protracted hours while the teacher—teaches stuff?
I think today’s young teachers are emerging from college with better teaching skills than many of us “dinosaurs.” They may know how to engage kids in active learning, but many of them, crushed with meetings, forms, budgetary constraints, and other concerns, including criticism from other teachers in their schools, may depart from their splendid training and go back to the old silent-room routine.
Activities for learning. . . repeating core concepts in a variety of ways. . . .plenty of physical movement. . . . .Piaget identifies ages 7-11 as the time when kids are very concrete in their thinking. What does that mean? It means activities, hands-on projects to make learning real to this age. Indeed, as I work with secondary students, it seems that many of them may have missed this type of learning. They do not know how to transfer words in a textbook to real-life language, much less application. Asked to trim 1-1/4 inches from an artboard, asked to drill a hole 5/8” from an edge, asked to measure 1-1/3 cups of water to mix plaster: they cannot do it! This is simple math. More hands-on activities practicing the very math that their lives will require would be a good way to move through the elementary curriculum. Making and painting an air-dry clay model of geological strata might be better than doing a worksheet and taking a test. Writing iambic pentameter might be better than true-false questions about it.
Ask yourself: what is childhood for? What is adolescence for? As we think deeply and answer these questions honestly, we can design classroom work that really teaches.
