Learning

How do I learn? Good question, it was only after I became a teacher that I understood how I learned. I am very much a hands-on approach kind of gal, and guess I always have been. When I read the required blog for this week I reminisced about the long gone days of catholic school good times, good times...(NOT!) I could still remember that _itch, (don't worry I was thinking witch-what kind of a catholic girl do you guys think I am, OMG!) Sister Mary Francis rapping me on the knuckles with a ruler for not knowing my addition facts instantaneously-goodness. I still have the physical and emotional scars to prove what that woman did to me! I also remember felling stupid, as I got older, when I was never called to line up with the G & T group, but I did line up for basic skills math. Oh boy, how those G & T brats would let you know how unspecial you were for not being in the G &T club. I just thank God he has such a great sense of humor and most of G & T kids are LOSERS now. I have run into them on occasion and have enjoyed telling them, how great my family and I are doing-HA! In retrospect and as an educator, I think the dictator fear me approach was awful and ineffective. I do not believe that children or for that matter any individual learns with fear, but we do our best learning through experience. I think this negative approach is what created a very combative school kid and a hatred for school-there I said it! I really did, I hated school. So much so that when I graduated High School all my friends went off to college and I went into the Army! It wasn't until I was 20 and married that I went to college. I was so apprehensive. It took a lot of coaxing from my husband, he said to me "babe college is fun!" he of course was referring to the sorority parties-I didn't know that at the time. You know what, it was fun and I attribute that fun to experience. I enjoyed all my discussion style classes and my hands on classes. Personally, I feel that it fostered a sense of curiosity in trying to become more adept with the material. I can see that since I became a teacher 13 years ago I tried the approach that worked best for me so long ago, experience. When ever possible I take that kids out in real life situations. Last year for example I was trying to teach ESL in a very affluent community and for a field trip I took my, ready for this, 2 Japanese students , 2 students from Spain who spoke Basque, 1 Arabic Student and 1 Korean student out to lunch at the Olive Garden and then to a play at the Paper Mill Playhouse. The children ages ranged from 12-15. I can not even tell you all the " Thank You's" I received from them. They loved it and had so much fun! Now the children had seen each other but did not know one another well. It got me thinking-I wonder if they would warm up to each other having a language barrier as a common factor? They did and by the end of lunch we were all sharing and questioning customs and cultures, giggling at how we say words differently-me included. I still always say "Control Remote". That day I felt walls were taken down, inhibitions subsided and progress was made all through experience.

I have even taken this approach with my own children. I knew that being in second grade they would being doing a lot of work with the election, money, and exploring history. I had researched the curriculum. So what did I do, my husband and I took them to Washington last June for a four day weekend just so they would get a better feel for the material that they are now being exposed too. I can tell you it worked like a charm my daughters are animated with the subject and all because they have experienced it first hand.