Learning How To Learn booknotes

Learning How To Learn, suggested to me my Melanie.

The first part of the book was too dense for me. But when the book gets into how the Montessori classroom works, the role of the child and the role of the teacher, it really shines. It is a continuous struggle for me not to expect my children to behave as adults.

Some gems:

Children are taught to speed up their performance by an emphasis on completing a task or test accurately within a fixed time. The young child has, in his own view, all the time in the world. And he needs this time. And he needs this time. The number of perpetually harassed mothers who tell their children to stop dawdling and get it finished, whether ‘it’ be supper or dressing, is legion.

The action has merit above and beyond the actual physical fact of the child’s accomplishment. It has the merit of allowing the child to participate in the society in which he finds himself, not at the level of an adult, but at the level of an emerging individual. The importance of a strong sense of self can be seen when we think of the tasks which will be demanded of an American child of three in a few short years. The ability to work independently, to continue to accomplish, whether or not the adult is physically present at one’s elbow at all times, the ability to initiate work because one has had previous successful experience, are important learning skills for a child. Many children are so conditioned by adults that they will refuse to attempt anything new until they have been given either explicit directions by an adult or, what is more frequent, explicit approval to do so by an adult.

The rhythm of the child is a rhythm different from the adult. The child works at a thing until he is satisfied. The teacher has no foolproof way of knowing when this point is reached. The teacher must constantly guard against over-teaching and over-correcting—correcting a child who is unaware that he has made an error, intervening to show a child how to improve a skill he has barely learned. Respecting at all times the child’s right to help himself, and to solicit help only when he feels it is needed, requires tremendous patience.

2024-12-10