Independent Learner

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a life time.

The other day I was reprimanded by my daughter's teacher for not making my daughter learn her spellings for the dictation. Yes, I had seen the entry in her diary - "learn the spellings from Lesson # for dictation". As I contemplated on my situation, I realized that while the school had given a task to my daughter, what the school had completely missed out was HOW my daughter is supposed to do it. (Or maybe the school assumed that the parents should know the "how").

The next thought: Is the school's task to give them spelling homework and then test spellings, or is the school's task to show children how to learn spellings.

Further even if a school teaches one method, is it necessarily the best (or the only way). Aren't there more than one way of doing things effectively. In which case is it the school's responsibility to tell the children "how" to do it.

Further if the child is facing problems - is just doing more of something the solution; is 'drill more', 'practice more' the best way. We know from our own childhood, how ineffective is practice (we almost ended up hating the learning task).

Finally the next day, the school notice board, under the thought-for-the-day banner quoted, "Don't shy from your mistakes, for they are your stepping stones towards learning". While I wanted to congratulate the school for the such an apt quote, what I would really like to ask the school is, "Are you teaching children "HOW" to learn from mistakes. Believe me IF we all learned from our mistakes, we will all be perfect great human beings. But don't we continue to make the same mistakes! Somewhere, nobody teachers us how to learn from our mistakes. So when we turn adults some of us are good at it, some bad - but most just end up being average in learning from mistakes.

At Geniekids we believe that it is far more important to make children learn how to learn. This way we get independent, lifelong learners. Then whatever is of interest or need to the individual he or she can learn it easily. Hence instead of the the content, focus on the process. Its HOW we learn that is far more important then WHAT we learn.

Most importantly we as Parents can a big contribution in making our children independent learners

Here is a six point plan for that:

1.       Focus on PROCESS, not on result. Do not react to the child's work in terms of the outcome, rather in terms of the effort he or she has put in. Congratulate the child not for the way, say, a painting looks, but the way she tried different colors or how she was patient, or how she composed different elements et al.

2.       Ask REFLECTION questions that make the child reflect on the process. My most favorite question - "Hey! How did you do this?" or "Please will you teach me (show me) how you did it.3.       Ask EXTENSION questions that extend the child's thinking beyond what she did: My favorite: "What you could have done that it would have come out better?" or "What could have happened if........?" or "How you could have done it differently?"

4.       Ask ASSESSMENT questions which make the child (NOT YOU) assess his or her own work: My Favorite: "What did you most like in your work?" Which areas of your performance (or effort) are you most pleased with? Or "What worked, what did not?"

5.       Ask questions that make child identify, realize and develop ABILITIES (as well as understand which areas are lacking). My Favorite: "Which of your qualities did you use in doing this?" "What would you like to learn more (or develop more) to be able to do this better?"

6.       Get child into habit of learning from peers, i.e. modeling. If Raju can draw better, we can learn drawing from him; if Anita can sing better, let’s learn singing from her and so on. The key question child asks peers is "Show me (or teach me) how you do it so well".

By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com

If you need one to one guidance on anything related to your child(ren) - we offer the same through:
1) Email or chat or voice services like skype. This costs you Rs800/- - one time fee - and unlimited sessions/ emails related to your problems for a maximum period of six months.
2) If you are in

For further details on the same, including payment options - please email to info@geniekids.com with subject as "one-to-one"

All copyrights reserved by GenieKids.
Reproduction of any part or whole of our articles (only flatters us!) can be only done with due credit given to GenieKids with link to our website www.geniekids.com