{"id":9226,"date":"2017-05-25T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/2017\/05\/25\/the-who-what-when-where-why-and-how-of-learning\/"},"modified":"2017-05-25T09:00:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T09:00:23","slug":"the-who-what-when-where-why-and-how-of-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/2017\/05\/25\/the-who-what-when-where-why-and-how-of-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Shari Maser, Off-Campus Program Advisor<\/em><\/p>\n

Quotes make me think. They distill ideas down to their essence, raise questions, and inspire me to go out and learn more to build my own understanding of a topic or interest area. When it comes to learning, a number of education writers and philosophers come to mind whose insights have challenged the conventional ideas of education and school. Let me share a few of their quotes with you now; you\u2019ll see how powerful just a few words can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cWere a place and a time really necessary to learn?\u201d This is the simple question that drove Clara Bellar<\/a> to film the soon-to-be-released documentary Being and Becoming: What If We Chose Not to School Our Children?<\/em> (Watch the trailer.<\/a>) It\u2019s a good question, and it raises a number of others for families considering the alternatives to traditional school: What is learning, and when, where, why, and how does learning happen? Do kids need an institutional building, a cohort of age-identical peers, and a standardized curriculum and pace in order to learn effectively and joyfully?<\/p>\n

Linda Aronson<\/a>, author of Unleashed to Learn<\/em>, advises, \u201cStudents should never be cloistered in schools. They should be visible, active members in their community.\u201d In this way, they can connect with the real world and maintain their internal curiosity and drive to learn. Or, perhaps Elizabeth Foss<\/a>, author of Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home<\/em>, puts it best: \u201cWhen the atmosphere encourages learning, the learning is inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Education pioneer Maria Montessori<\/a> maintained that \u201cthe education of even a small child\u2026does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.\u201d Thus, it follows that learning and life are inextricably intertwined, an idea that was echoed by John Holt<\/a>, who wrote extensively about homeschooling and unschooling. \u201cA child has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing,\u201d noted Holt in How Children Learn<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As parents, we can see firsthand that the motivation to learn is innate, particularly when our children are young. So, how can we nurture learning in a way that harnesses each child\u2019s natural motivation to learn? Holt says, first and foremost, we must \u201ctrust children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.\u201d No one said this was going to be easy!<\/p>\n

Naomi Aldort<\/a>, author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves<\/em>, succinctly captures this crucial responsibility in a way that many parents will want to remember. She writes, \u201cWe don\u2019t water a flower if it blooms; we water it so it will bloom.\u201d Ultimately, we must give our children our fullest compassion, respect, and trust; then, follow their lead as they naturally pursue their passions, curiosities, interests, and goals.<\/p>\n

What are your favorite quotes about education, and what insights do they offer about the \u201cwho, what, when, where, why, and how\u201d of learning?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Shari Maser, Off-Campus Program Advisor Quotes make me think. They distill ideas down to their essence, raise questions, and inspire me to go out and learn more to build my own understanding of a topic or interest area. When it comes to learning, a number of education writers and philosophers come to mind whose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clonlara.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}