How Children Learn In Bite Size Pieces (1/6)

First up in my Educating Education project is John Holt's 1967 work, How Children Learn.

Foreword

Holt sets out his thesis clearly: young children tend to learn better than adults (and they themselves when they are older) since they use their minds in a special way. Holt’s contention is that most parenting and schooling trains out this natural method. The results are only a few become good at learning, but most are humiliated and discouraged; the children are more limited than what they could have become. If we better understand how children really learn then school may become a place where all children can grow.

This book attempts to chart how children do learn rather than analysing the brain to create a child psychology theory; the children contained herein are mostly of pre-school age. The human mind is a mystery and as such should be modest and tentative about any conclusions drawn. That said teachers and learners have known for some time that vivid and pleasurable experiences are easiest to remember and memory works best when unforced.

Chapter 1: Games and Experiments

One of the themes is that children love to create, for example their own songs: they are normally a mix of sense and nonsense, but creating new variations of words and music is a strain on an adult’s imagination so much so their efforts are rarely better than a child’s. Yet most schools concentrate on teaching songs for children to get “right” rather than creating anything, it’s merely compulsory fun, thus alienates many children and they become non-singers. Carl Orff’s method suggests that when a child is given many opportunities to make up their own chants and tunes their musical and verbal growth can be very rapid.

Further they have an “Instinct of Workmanship”. Lisa, two years old, started to copy Holt’s clapping in time with the music and then his more complex movements such as tapping his hand with one hand and his stomach with the other. She didn’t get it right first time, and note well she felt she didn’t need to, but was always checking back and forth to improve until it was a pretty accurate copy (Holt muses that children would learn a great deal by asking questions and imitating real people doing real work such as craftsmen). She started by doing something and thinking how to fix it. We often miss this because children are unskilful and use crude materials; watch the loving care with which a child smoothes off a sandcastle. They want to make it as well as they can, not to please someone else, but to satisfy themselves.

Another example was when Lisa found a ballpoint and took it apart. Holt started to put it together but she said no and began to put its four pieces together. She took twenty minutes to reassemble the pen; she came close but didn’t have the dexterity to achieve it, but she never became angry or discouraged. Holt then reflected on why so many four year olds in nursery schools become tearful or angry when the couldn’t complete a puzzle; he suspects that it’s because they are in a status-conscious situation all struggling for the approval of the teacher or each other. Lisa though is only putting the pen together as an end in itself.

Holt also believes that children are natural learners. They though learn not like scientists, asking a question then cutting out all unnecessary data, but by amassing as much data as possible until they know which questions to ask- they grown up in a strange world and understand a tiny amount of what happens. This explains why children are more likely to try new things, such as play a cello, than would an adult; the latter find it difficult to work in the noise. Furthermore the child is much less likely to draw hard and fast conclusions than an adult from little data. These vital skills of thought, which in our hurry to get him thinking, may very well stunt or destroy in the process of “educating” him.

An interesting example is a little boy who is “noticing (and) quick” yet hates to be taught. He loves though to learn and stores objects up for future use; he also uses his spade and hammer with great care and loves helping his parents in the garden. However when we try to teach the ABCs he becomes furious and frustrated probably because he sees no meaning in it, states Holt. Lisa, now five, on the other hand is a serious student and worries about her grades despite receiving straight As yet she deeply dislikes school.

Children can learn some cause-and-effect games when they are very young. Holt accidentally bumped heads with a girl no more than 7 months old gently whilst carrying her. He said, “Bump”. She seemed to enjoy it so I said “Bump” again and bumped his forehead against hers. After a few goes she soon learnt the game and when I said “Bump” she would “Bump” her head against mine. Sometimes however it takes a while for a child to learn that a particular event A will lead to another event B with regularity. In general acquainting a child with a mechanical device that he can work and fix, aids the understanding of causal laws since he learns that not only do many actions have predictable effects but also that the world is a sensible and trustworthy place.

The best games with little children, though, flow naturally from the situation of the moment. However if the child isn’t enjoying the game, it’s tempting think that if we just play it a little more he will enjoy it but he won’t, and we won’t.

Another major idea is the intrinsic independence of the child. Lisa finds it impossible to see why she should not touch items that everyone else does. Every day she hears, “Don’t touch that, it’s too hot, too sharp etc” and each time she feels that we are attacking her right to investigate the world around her which is how she makes sense of it. This can destroy a child’s curiosity and make her feel that the world is full of hidden danger and ways of getting in trouble rather than being somewhere to explore and think about. Holt argues that we should keep every object that we do not want a child to touch out of reach and even out of sight. At the same time we should keep many cheap durable objects around that they could use, for example an eggbeater and a torch.

Danny whilst being very good at jigsaw puzzles would sometimes deliberately do them wrong just because it was funny. Further when looking at a book he would say “Tractor” when he knew it was a combine. Holt pondered this and concluded that symbols are ours to use as we wish. We can use them correctly or use them incorrectly as a joke. We are in charge, not symbols.

Children instinctively only fear a few things such as loud noises and loss of support. It looks like children catch most of their fears from their elders. Lisa was never afraid of any bugs, in fact she wanted to pick them up and look at them. However one day a twelve year-old girl, friend of her older sister, saw a spider in a room in which Lisa was residing and screamed hysterically until someone killed the spider. Thenceforth Lisa has been scared of all bugs. A part of her curiosity about the world has been shut off and who can tell when it will turn on again?

Lisa went to an amusement park and saw a little train. She looked interested but also a little frightened. Perhaps it was too big and too noisy. She said, “I can’t go train, I can’t go train”. After going on some different rides she declared, “I need to ride that train right now”. Holt thought she should have a chance to conquer her fear. However when she saw it just as big as before she said, “I can’t go train, I can’t go train”. It is easy to say why we fear things but not so easy to say where the drive comes from to overcome them particularly in a little child. Some kinds of courage are learned, but there is surely also an instinct of courage which we should nurture as best we can.

Holt was round at a house where he knew the children very well and he entered into an argument about politics. Whilst the argument was friendly it was too much for the children who circled around and moved in a conciliatory fashion to take the adults' minds off it and restore the cheerful and happy atmosphere. They are no doubt cruel to each other but near a child who is badly hurt or very unhappy children soon become distressed. It is a rare a child is capable of the sustained deliberate cruelty so often shown by adults. Sometimes though children hit each other not out of malice but what can only be described as an overwhelming urge to see what would happen. Holt was playing in the park with a friend, they were both aged three, and out of the blue he hit Holt with his toy shovel. They had been playing peacefully and Holt never understood why he did it.

In conclusion Holt argues that children are natural learners but rather than starting with an abstract concept their natural method is trial and error to comprehend the empirical world. They are also creative, independent, brave and persistent.