I don't remember if I had that kind of an attitude about English, but one of the bitternesses I harbor about school has to do with learning English. English lessons helped me learn English until I was in the 6th grade, after that my learning was from books I read and tv shows I watched. I remember the moment I realised that I know English; I was watching Bold and the Beautiful and had an epiphany - I wasn't reading the subtitles anymore but I was listening to what they were actually saying, in English. After that English lessons were really boring, and didn't really contribute to my use of it... I remember the only 2 words I learned on the 8th grade (obstruction and contempt). My teacher noticed that I was bored, but didn't really offer me anything more challenging or meaningful. Now when I think about who I was then I had a really deep need to be understood and to find ways to express my diverse thoughts, and even though I studied English, Finnish and French, none of those lessons fulfilled that need.
No wonder children have the attitudes they do; at school it is not really considered important what children are excited about or do in their free time. The researcher concludes that attention should be placed on forging connections between the children's experiences and their English lessons. That way, the article says, "children's attitudes would also change". I don't know how important that is, I think that the children's attitudes are a pretty clear indicator of how things actually are at school, and how their life outside of school is seen there. I would think that the point of the change would be that children could be excited about what they learn, could see the relevance of what they do learn, and they are seen as whole children and their learning outside of school is also valued.
I think that the same would apply to any school subject, and actually to anything outside of school; true learning has everything to do with our lives as they are now, and all that we willingly learn can change our life as it is now.
hmmph.. i think teachers don't always realise how important it is to encourage the hard working all clever people that achieve at school.. for them it's just like a fact and they forget to tell them how good they actually are. or else they just try too much not to bring those good students up so that the worse ones don't feel bad..? you know what i mean? i think it's extremely hard to be a teacher.. it's hard to know what's right and notice everyone.. :/
VastaaPoistai've been told to learn just something without stressing about it because every little thing you learn is a step forward. i think that's a really good thought.. learning comes more my own will (like you said about learning willingly) etc.
hmph.. i hope i didn't upset you or anything.. didn't mean to.. i like your thoughts. and i like this text i read. it makes me think and want to say my thoughts. and that's why i said them. and i wrote them in english, too!
ps. i definately agree your last paragraph!
ps.2 just an other thought: you can't learn anything if all the things you learn are way too hard for you. like i was told, if you don't understand, you need to go back in knowledge and find the thing you didn't understand, even though it is something right in the beginning of your studies!
ps.3 hanna, sa vaan oot niin kiva. kunpa voisin sua halata ja kertoo, etta susta valitan :> voi hyvin, vahankuinsiskoni(?)!
oh. and an other thought:
VastaaPoistathe english we learn at school isn't "proper" english.. or i don't know.. i just have realised here how horible it actually is that people can't actually use their languages though they know all the rules and get good grades from the tests.. also i have noticed a couple of times that though my english grades weren's as good as my friends, i was able to speak english way better than they were. in finland learning is so much only writing.. people can't pronouns words etc. the good thing is though that our spelling is very good!
in all subjects in finland, i think the problem is that we never actually learn to learn them for everydaylife but for exams etc.
i don't know..
aparently finnish people are cleverer than any other people in the world though..
the thing is: why are so many young people in finland depressed? is it because of school or what?
I think that the main problem with Finnish school system is, that it is compulsory. Well, there is oppivelvollisuus (learning oblication?), but no oblication to go to school. Practically anyway going to school is considered to be compulsory. And that is the main thing that makes it harder to help children learn. Because they don't necessarily have the need to know about many, many of the things taught at school. The need to know doesn't come from within them when the learning is forced and manipulated with grades, praise, rewards and punisments. When children(or adults) can't impact enough what they learn, when they learn it and how they learn it.
VastaaPoistaIt is extremely difficult to have genuine interest to learning common in the classroom when the pupils are there because they are told that they have to be there and they have to learn all the things in given order and if you don't youll get bad numbers or other punishments and that's it.
School is far from real life and it does harm to many people. I am considering that I might homeschool or even unschool my children. Humans in general are interested in learning an learn every day. When school or other manipulative "learning help" is not forced on them, the joy of learning might show and be experienced much more widely throughout peoples lifes. I have found it within a year again at the age of 25 and I love all the possibilities to live a happier life it gives to me. I hope I could let my kids to have it for all their lives.
E
Thanks for comments! E, I really agree on all points you make about traditional schooling, and am really happy that you are considering home/unschooling (even if one wouldn't go for it, it's healthy to honestly assess what we're putting children through and in the the name of what it happens).
VastaaPoistaI'm planning of adding the unschooling resources I've found most valuable to the blog as soon as I get around to it. I've started to reacquaint myself with them this week, since I think that I'll get different things out of them this time...
I started my personal deschooling process a couple of years ago after I stumbled upon the idea of unschooling. I certainly haven't recovered my sense of wonder in things and joy of all learning yet, many things make me insecure and afraid of external judgment. And it's also somewhat sad to notice how few things I was able to truly explore in my childhood and youth, mostly due to having to spend so much time at school and having a very harsh environment.
It takes time to regain trust in oneself and one's life. The most striking feature in schooling and in many traditional childrearing practices is, I think, the lack of trust in the child. We have learned not to trust ourselves to learn and thrive in the world. There is the view that children are manipulative, inherently bad, inherently lazy etc. and thus need to be forced to do things that "are good for them".
I believe now, instead, that when we allow children to explore the world they will do so and find their own place far better than they ever do after schooling. There are enormous amounts of people who have learned to "excel" at school, and still have hardly any idea about what suits them, would make them happy, or is valuable and unique about them. I for one am one of those people.
I believe now that children need for us to trust them and their ability to learn on their own initiative (which doesn't mean that we don't support them - actually we need to really pay attention instead of thinking that "school takes care of learning"). But the caveat is this: trusting means trusting also, and especially, when the child makes a decision you wouldn't make for him.