The best stage of learning is considered to be childhood. It is in this stage that a human being not only learns most but also retains it for maximum period. Most of our mannerisms, our speech habits etc. are learnt in this stage. And the reason is that he is not made to learn by telling or teaching. He is not told to pick an object and he is not taught how to walk. He is shown the way to do these activities & he copies the acts to perfection. He is involved in the activity. Most of the things that he learns during childhood stick to his memory for a long time. Not that these activities are simple & easy. It is a complex issue for a child to pick the cup & take it to his lip to drink something. Most of the things that we do for the first time are complex for us because our mind is not ready for the action. It is when we get into the thick of action that mind starts learning the process & does the activity with greater ease.
Three common ways of guiding a person is by telling, by teaching & by involving him in the learning process. The objective in all the three processes is the same & almost same degree of efforts is required in all three processes. So what are the major differences & why learning by involvement yields best results? Let's take one at a time.
When we tell a child to do something, we are standing at different pedestals. As soon as I start telling him to do something, I declare that I am superior to you. And this one action takes the child miles away from the real process. He treats the teller as an outsider who is trying to disturb his natural way of learning. It might look that he is following your commands but from inside he is rejecting you. These emotions hamper his learning and he retains only part of the process that might be useful to him & rejects the rest.
The second way of guiding a child is by teaching him. Again there is a yawning chasm between the learner & the guide. What happens in most of our schools is not learning but only collection of knowledge for some purpose. Our children become no more than a dustbin of knowledge. Through this method we only dump information into their heads. By & by, child starts taking the school as a knowledge center & not a learning center. A child listens to a teacher not because he considers him to be genuine but because he doesn't have a choice to reject him. In fact, most of the students consider internet to be a better choice than a teacher because to the former they can give command while they take commands from the later. Education is not about imparting knowledge; it is about making him find the light.
"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." - Socrates
The best way of learning is through active involvement of the child. When we involve a child in the whole process, he identifies himself easily with the guide- be it a parent or a teacher. His whole body responds positively as there is no competition. Both the teacher & the learner are standing at the same platform & understand things from each other's perspective. This process lays stress on sharing. Sometimes the child considers himself to be a teacher when the guide asks him questions to test whether he has imbibed the learning. He takes joy in telling the answer in detail & because the guide is also involved, he appreciates the child. So, both the child & the guide enjoy this process. Learning becomes a matter of joy, not compulsion. And the biggest benefit is that the child not only learns what is being taught through this method but also how to be a good teacher. Since he likes the behavior of the guide, he tries to be the same & thus a flame is kindled for next generation.
"Kids don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are."
- Jim Henson
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