Hands-on Learning
The way to teach for the future
A baby learns to talk, eat and walk in the early years of its life. This same baby that had to practice to talk, be taught to eat, and helped to walk managed to listen from the time it was still in the womb. It's amazing how someone goes through life and learns so much from pure listening. By the time a child goes to school, he/she has mastered the basic skills needed to really listen. However, real educating had not yet begun for him/her. The question now becomes: do teachers educate by means of lecture or do they change the pace and teach by giving kids hands-on activities? Listening has been the primary source of education for children under the age of five. What would be better for the new student? Listening some more? Or doing?
A first grader, Katy, is in her classroom and when the teacher asks, "What is 2 + 2", everyone in the class yells, "Four!!" That is, everyone but Katy.
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Young person playing with a GameCubeShe doesn't understand why 2 + 2 = 4. Teachers many times go under the assumption that students listen to the lecture and accept what is being taught. There are students like Katy, however, that can't simply accept and they need to understand why something is the way it is. Then Katy's teacher places two blocks on her desk. Then she put two more next to them. When she asks Katy, "What is 2 + 2?" Katy smiles and answers, "1?2?3?4. Four!"
This type of scenario is not uncommon. To give a child something tangible is, without a doubt, head and shoulders over a lecture where a kid just has to trust that the teacher knows what he/she's talking about. A simple activity like the...