Learning Unleashed by Rogers Evonne E.;

Author:Rogers, Evonne E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

There is much to learn outside of the traditional classroom that cannot be replicated there. Trying to keep children contained in one room for six or more hours with few breaks and little to no authentic access to the world around them is wrong. For a very active child this amounts to hostage-taking and imprisonment. Yet, this is what we do every day in our efforts to meet the needs of all children.

In school, there is little room for deviation or gross motor development apart from physical education or short recesses. Instead, students are instructed to sit quietly and pay attention to the auditory signals for twelve long years. A square peg is flat out of luck in this scenario because it will never fit into the proverbial round hole. After a few tries to fit in, it will either muddle through, losing any hope of gaining momentum, or it will give up altogether and quit. This inability to fit the mold manifests itself in truancy, disruption, and apathy. On a sad note, this usually happens by third grade—at eight or nine years old.

What good comes from the conditioned response method? How does that impact learning? Why do we insist on doing it this way when we know it doesn’t work for a vast majority of students? Why are we willing to repeatedly watch this happen? These questions deserve an honest answer.

John Holt was a true pioneer in out-of-the-box schooling. In his 1976 book titled Instead of Education, he provides compelling arguments against compulsory schooling. While some saw this as radical ideology at that time, we now see an urgent shift happening with regard to his premise of educational freedom and choice. More and more parents and students are opting for different ways to learn apart from the regular classroom scenario. There are multitudes of options for learning that one can access. Why not access and utilize these options for credit as opposed to the forced bottom-in-seat method.

Seat time is so contrived and never amounts to the same kind of authentic learning that we know can happen in a variety of venues. Our children are crying out for something better, and we hold on to the old paradigm.

John Holt sums it up quite well in this particular quote from his book Instead of Education:

As long as schools remain compulsory, coercive, and competitive—any changes we make in them will not go very deep or very far or last for very long. Those who talk of reforming schools seem like people trying to bail the water out of a boat with a big hole in the bottom. A case might be made that we have to keep bailing until we can get to a place where we can fix the hole. But the reformers don’t seem to know that there is a hole.[6]

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