Philosophy of Learning...

Dear Children,

The following article is an excerpt from my today's reading...

Children naturally learn by exploring, questioning, experimenting, figuring things out, making connections, getting ideas and testing them, taking risks, making and correcting mistakes, and trying again.

Parents and other adults play a major role in this process, supporting, encouraging, enriching the learning environment with appropriate resources, modeling behavior, celebrating good ideas and accomplishments, sympathizing about errors, pointing out possibilities, and generally presenting the riches of the world to their children.

Learning is a complex process and doesn’t always appear to be sequential or organized. Nor is it always obvious to an onlooker that any learning is happening. But if you are a flexible and patient observer, you will be continually surprised and delighted by the sparks of discovery and insight that light up learners' faces on a regular basis.

Children don’t naturally think in terms of math or reading being “hard”; we create those feelings if we force them to learn these skills before they are developmentally or emotionally ready, or before they are interested. When people memorize something without truly understanding it, they haven’t really learned it.

When a skill is mastered in the context of an interest and need experienced in the real world, it is truly learned.

With Love, Amma-Naana