Learning: Where is the Value? by Dave Marks
In my many years in the classroom teaching in public institutions I recognized that there were very few students who wanted to learn for the joy of learning. Most of the students had reasonable goals: they wanted grades to graduate, to qualify for the National Honor Society, for acceptance at their college of choice, to please their parents, or to be placed into classes with their friends. Learning is such an important part of life and this surprised me so much, I began to study what was known about learning and desire. To my surprise, I learned that the schools created this attitude in their youngest students without knowing they were doing it.
You know what learning machines small children can be. Babies spend their first year studying their environment as hard as they can. They have to make sense of all of the sounds, colors, images that change shape and size as they move, tastes, textures (this is why almost everything is put to their lips), and they have to try to fit all of this information into their small minds. They spend almost all of their waking hours learning, because they are driven to understand everything they can about their world. It's no wonder that children's brains grow so fast the first year.
All of this learning is for the sake of the knowledge gained. Learning is an adventure and is fun for them. It is exciting to find out new things and discover new meanings to sounds and shapes. How wonderful it must be to first discover that when mom gets bigger it's because she has come closer. Think of the wonder in a child's mind at the realization that some sounds stand for things and some stand for ideas. How wonderful it must be to first learn that words can be used to communicate even better than gestures. For the first five or six years of the average child's life the joy of learning is what we call internalized. The desire to know comes from within the child.
Then children are sent to school. This is where the value in learning is externalized and this is taught to young children rather forcefully. Children learn that some kids are smart and they learn quickly. These lucky ones are prized by the teachers. These children get their names on the board, they get gold stars stuck on their foreheads and can go home with pride that they have learned something well. They are praised for their report cards with words like advanced, gifted, and above average. Students quickly learn that it is more important to get good reports and evaluations than it is to learn things for the joy of learning. The schools have externalized the joy of education. Learning no longer is fun and exciting for its own sake; its value now has become a way to get labels, smiles, and when they get home, compliments from their parents. In some cases children are even given money for good grades. Reading many books is a way to get a dollar and not just a way to grow and explore and have a wonderful mind trip with imaginary characters.
I don't want to change your educational goals for your children. The point of this essay is to help you understand how you can help your children achieve the goals you have set with and for them. One of the indicators that helped me recognize when students of mine had had the value of their education externalized is when they would ask me questions like the following: "How many points do we get for this?," or, "Will this material be on the test?," or, "is this stuff important? Should we memorize it?," and when they responded to my saying that the material wouldn't be on the test, or that there would be no points given or that there would be no grade given for a paper they had written, with statements similar to, "You mean that we did all that work and learned all that stuff for nothing?" What a sad thing it was when I heard that.
When Corey, our son, was in the first grade and for the next three years, we asked his teachers not to give him grades on his papers. We asked that they only indicate to him which of his efforts were in error. We supplied the positive reinforcement for his work for the first four years. Then we homeschooled him and that solved the problem for him. He continues to this day to learn for the joy of it. Even in his undergraduate and graduate schooling he wasn't concerned about his grades. Fortunately for him they were all As. Today he still finds joy in learning.
When I am invited into people's homes and there are no books lying about or on shelves and there are no magazines in racks or on the tables or chairs, I recognize that the people living there had their joy of learning stolen form them by our system.
When you work with your young children with their learning, please think of the problems caused by the externalizing of the values of their efforts. This is an easy thing help them with. When they have completed a learning task, you can examine it and say, "There are six wrong answers here so I'll have to give you a B-," or, you could say, "I'm really proud of your interest in this subject. I can see that you get pleasure from learning new things. Isn't it fun?" At first they may ask you what their grades are. You can tell them that everything doesn't have a grade. Learning is its own reward (you'll have to explain that to them). If they say they want grades for their work, put As on their papers. Never let your children think they are not wonderful at learning. Positive reinforcement works like magic. These are young children. You have years to make them perfect like we are. In the meantime, for them, let the value of learning remain internal.
About the author:
Dave Marks, founder of the National Writing Institute, was the author of Writing Strands, Reading Strands, the Dragonslaying is for Dreamers trilogy and its accompanying Novel Study, and other excellent curriculum. Visit the web site for more information and help:
http://www.writingstrands.com
