Just One More...
At a time in my life when I should be taking on less, I find myself taking on more. I'm realising now that I am my own worst enemy. I just can't turn a blind eye to new opportunities in learning and now I find myself signed up to yet another online learning community - Learning Creative Learning.
http://learn.media.mit.edu/lcl/
This pathway of my learning journey has only just begun and I am excited about what lies ahead with the opportunity to be connected with such a wide range of people across the globe.
Mitchel Resnick from MIT Media Lab, is the man behind LCL. Resnick is passionate about what he refers to as 'kindergarten learning' and how as children we are creators and makers, yet this behaviour disappears when we start school and, unfortunately, it is starting to disappear in the kindergarten years and early childhood centres too due to the belief that we need to engage in formal education at an earlier age if we are to be successful in the future.
Friedrich Froebel
It was interesting to read in chapter 1 of Mitchel's book, Lifelong Kindergarten, that in 1837, when Friedrich Froebel opened the world's first kindergarten in Germany, he had no idea that it would be a way to encourage the creative thinking that many educators believe is an important feature in 21st century education.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Fr%C3%B6bel
Froebel designed a set of wooden toys - 'Froebel's Gifts' that along with singing and dancing, became important aspects of this child-centered approach to early education. So different to the dictorial style of learning that was prevalent in the schools at that time. Unfortunatley, some would say that the schools of today have not changed.
Lifelong Kindergarten
Mitchel Resnick would like to see life being like kindergarten - where the 4 'Ps' - projects, passion, peers and play are an integral part of our daily lives. I began my happy dance when I read this because the creativity and sense of play that we associate with kindergarten is the link to what I've been trying to identify with when thinking about 'play-based' learning.
Ormiston Primary cannot be a 'forest school' in the true sense because our environment simply doesn't lend itself to be one. It can, however, have an approach to learning like a kindergarten. A kindegarten that encourages creating, experimenting, refining, reflecting and imagining. This is so exciting. Let the learning begin!
Interesting. I find it funny that we knew what works almost 200 years ago, yet we still do things that aren't really effective (or interesting). Guess we need to keep fighting the good fight!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Michael. I agree - 200 years with the same old, same old! I guess we need to understand why school was initially designed like it was (and mostly still is), then help educators and our parent community identify what and why many areas need to change. As the saying goes, 'old habits die hard', but as Froebel once said, ".... because learning begins when consciousness erupts, education must also."
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