How Children Learn

In her article, "Beyond Remote-Controlled Teaching and Learning: The Special Challenges of Helping Children Construct Knowledge Today" in the newest Exchange Essential: The Spirit of Teaching, Diane Levin, talks about the importance of letting children learn through play:

"This process of constructing knowledge — having an experience that creates a problem, working to figure it out or solve the problem, and then ‘playing’ with what was ‘invented’ to solve the problem" — is at the heart of what Jean Piaget (1973) talks about in his important book, To Understand Is to Invent. He describes ‘invention’ as " the process by which children construct new knowledge and understanding and advance intellectually." And he argues that play is essential to this invention process: children bring their new inventions to their play, see how they work, and adapt them as they encounter new problems by coming up with new inventions that solve the problem....

"So often today it is as if children are being remote controlled by the scripts of others [television, videos, electronic toys], instead of coming up with their own unique stories and problems to solve. [Remote-control childhood] is exactly the opposite of [a child's] play, where he worked out a unique problem in a unique way, and learned how to have wonderful ideas that furthered both his development and the sense of satisfaction that can come from working things out on his own. Remote-control childhood] undermines children’s ability to come up with wonderful ideas of their own creation and, instead, promotes the rote learning that is a carbon copy of the script creators."


 

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