Having
recently been fascinated by John Holt’s writings on how children learn to read,
I was equally keen to digest his reflections on ‘Art, Math and Other Things’. To
me, the key points arising from this chapter are:
1) We must not underestimate what children
are capable of
2) Children learn best when they can
clearly see the reason for what they are doing
3) We must allow children the time and
space to play with new objects and tools before moving on to ‘teach’ them
specific uses
4) We should allow the natural flow of
ideas that cross traditional academic disciplines
Initially
describing art, he notes that many schools were dropping the amount of time
spent on developing creativity in order to focus on the more ‘important’ and
traditionally academic targets in literacy and numeracy. ‘They should at least be exposed to the idea that art can be, not just
a diversion, but a very powerful way of getting in touch with and expressing
reality’. From my own perspective, I remember wanting to be an artist when
I was a young child; I don’t know if I ever had the aptitude or skill, but I do
remember taking a sketch pad and charcoal pencils around with me when I was
aged about 10. However, art was not seen as a ‘real’ subject, and as I wanted
to be a doctor, it had to be dropped. (Interestingly, my husband was given the
opportunity to take photography to a high level during his schooling despite
similar career intentions). The observation that ‘even very young children want to do things well, or at least as well
as they see us do them. They are perfectly able to learn how to use many kinds
of tools, including sharp woodworking tools, cooking tools, musical
instruments, and cameras, that most people would insist they could not use’. Again,
freedom and trust are encouraged, and one can clearly see the advantages in
informal home education whereby a child can develop and explore in these areas.
Holt concludes, ‘I will insist once
again, and more strongly than before, that art is a very powerful and essential
way for many children both to explore the world around (and inside) them and to
express much of what they have learned and felt about it. It is not a ‘frill’
but a central human activity and need, one we neglect at our peril’.
Problem
solving as a motivation for learning is discussed both in relation to art and
in terms of the scientific and mathematical sections that follow. ‘Any situation, any activity, that puts
before us real problems that we have to solve for ourselves, problems for which
there are no answers in any book, sharpens our intelligence. The arts, like the
crafts and the skilled trades, are full of such problems which is why our
skilled artists, artisans and craftsmen are very likely to be sharp-witted
people. Their minds are active and inventive; they have to be.’
Again,
regarding problem solving and the acquisition of real-life, useful skills, he
describes the limitations of mainstream education: ‘One of the fundamental ideas behind most of what we do in school is
that children should and must spend many years memorizing a lot of dull facts
before they can begin to do interesting things with them.’
Arithmetic
Realising
that learning for learning’s sake was not the answer, Holt felt that arithmetic
was ‘a territory to be explored, not a
list of facts to be learned’. Children were given time and space to explore
the interrelationships between numbers, sizes and shapes; one example he gave
was taking a roll of paper (such as that used in a shop till) and writing
consecutive numbers at regular intervals up to 1500 so that children could see
just how large numbers related to the smaller ones. However, he does remark
that to try and reproduce some of his educational tools may run into the error
of simply replacing one curriculum with another, and that flexibility in
approach is key. ‘They need to see,
again without hurry or pressure, how numbers change and grow and relate to each
other.’
Importance
of Free Play; More than ‘Messing About’
The section
that really captivated me was the evidence regarding free play rather than
immediately trying to ‘teach’ and expect children to apply principles which
they have not really internalised. First, describing the work of Bill Hull and
colleagues: ‘If, when a child came in
for the first time, they tried to get him ‘to work’ right away, to play some of
their games and solve some of their puzzles, they got nowhere. The child would
try to do what he was asked to do, but without joy or insight. But if at first
they let the child alone for a while, let him play with the materials in his
own way, they got very different results... This proved to be so consistently
true that the experimenters made it a rule always to let children have a period
of completely free play with the materials before asking them to do directed
work with them’.
A more
detailed article, entitled ‘Messing about in science’ was published by
Professor David Hawkins in 1965. He expands upon this concept. ‘There is a time, much greater in amount
than commonly allowed, which should be devoted to free and unguided exploratory
work (call it play if you wish; I call it work). Children are given materials
and equipment – things – and are allowed to construct, test, probe and
experiment without superimposed questions or instruction.’ An example is
then given regarding pendulum motion. Some children were given simple frames
with weights hanging on strings (the most basic type of pendulum) and were left
to play around with the length of the string, the speed of swing etc. These
children were able to work out for themselves some of the basic physics
involved in this process, even though they might not be able to summarise these
in terms of an equation or a ‘rule’. The article by Professor Hawkins
concludes, ‘In starting this way I, for
one, naively assumed that a couple of hours of ‘Messing About’ would suffice.
After two hours, instead, we allowed two more and, in the end, a stretch of
several weeks. In all this time there was little or no evidence of boredom or
confusion. Most of the questions we might have planned for came up unscheduled.
Why did we permit this length of time? First, because in our previous classes
we had noticed that things went well when we veered towards ‘Messing About’ and
not as well when we held too tight a rein on what we wanted the children to do.
It was clear that these children had had insufficient acquaintance with the
sheer phenomenon of pendulum motion, and needed to build an appreciative
background, against which a more analytical sort of knowledge could take form
and make sense.’
What a
child is doing when they might appear to be ‘messing about’ is in fact
developing their own models of how the world around them works. Often these
models are developed through trials and failures, by subtle changes in
application, by continually re-evaluating what was previously considered to be
true. ‘When the mind is evolving the
abstractions which will lead to physical comprehension, all of us must cross
the line between ignorance and insight many times before we truly understand.’
Of course a child is unaware that this process is occurring, but it is
producing a very solid foundation upon which more complex work can be built. I
think many of us as adults are aware of times when we have rushed ahead on
something, getting impatient or frustrated with the fundamental principles,
when in fact we might as well be wasting our time if we haven’t given due time
and attention to the foundations. Something along these lines, although
difficult to precisely analyse, appears to be occurring in children. ‘This applies just as strongly to reading,
or numbers, or arithmetic, or history, or geography or language, as it does to
science.’
Diversity
of Ideas
This
concept of ‘Messing About’ or taking time to play and explore objects and ideas
has many other advantages. Referring to his work in science, Hawkins wrote, ‘we were eager to see where and by what
paths their interests would evolve and carry them. We were rewarded with a
higher level of involvement and a much greater diversity of experiments.’
A couple of
detailed examples are given whereby children (firstly an individual child, and
then a small class of children of diverse ages) pursued ideas through many
different areas. For example, a boy who first became interested in scuba
diving, then in deep sea diving for wrecked ships, through to ancient history
and lost civilisations, through to archaeology and through several other areas
in the interim. The point made is that nobody would start a history lesson with
scuba diving, but this was how the child developed his interests. Of course,
such an approach simply will not work in mainstream schools; there is not the
time or space for each child to develop his own chain of ideas, and
furthermore, the teachers tend to artificially draw a dividing line (perhaps
more so in secondary education where there will be separate courses, classrooms
and teachers) to separate ‘history’, from ‘geography’, from ‘literature’, from
‘humanities’ etc.
So Why
Does Everybody Not See This?
I found
reading this book a breath of fresh air and reason, especially when compared to
the voices I more frequently hear, the voices of my slightly anxious friends
who are continually trying to justify their own choices with regard to
childcare and education. But of course not everybody thinks this way, and not
everybody can. Interspersed throughout the book are comments regarding the
opposition that any challenge to the status
quo may engender. My interpretation of the main challenges preventing all
education being based on a child-led model with much free time for ‘Messing
About’ is thus:
1) There is an attitude in our country
that teachers know best, and that parents should delegate all educational
responsibility to the ‘professionals’
2) Along these lines, the political
drivers in education are usually not motivated primarily by the best for each
individual child
3) Therefore much of what I have
written about here represents a paradigm shift; it is different to what we have
been taught from our own education, and challenges our prevailing worldview.
4) Some teachers have unhelpful motives
– either in terms of balance of power, or of a need to be needed – that may
reduce their ability to truly see what is best for the child
5) Many teachers are afraid of frequent
tests of attainment that judge both their pupils and themselves; free-play
seems like too much of a luxury
6) Possibly some teachers are afraid of
losing control, of not being able to follow neat and precise lesson plans, of
being placed ‘on the spot’ of having to think outside the box. (I know during
teaching in Higher Education, some educators prefer the teacher-led,
prescriptive, traditional lecture format even when more student-led and
interactive technologies can be adopted; often this relates to the confidence
of the lecturer and their familiarity with the subject matter. It is harder to
be flexible)
7) Some teachers may not have the
freedom to adopt a flexible approach, but instead may need to show evidence
regarding how individual elements of the curriculum are being addressed
8) True understanding and acquisition
of principles cannot be easily measured; both parents and teachers would prefer
to have ‘proof’ of the child’s progress
There will be others. I wonder what your initial
reaction to reading this is? Is it an unattainable, utopian ideal, or a model
you could embrace? I’d love to know your tho
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