“Jim remains interested in a subject for exactly as long as he is learning. The minute his learning in a given area stops, he loses interest in that and finds something else to think about. This is classic learning behaviour, and children’s knowledge grows in the same way, unless the rational process is sabotaged.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
From the archives: Posted on 4th May 1994
Jim wrote:
“I doubt if I will have ‘staying power.’ I post because I enjoy writing. At some point, I will have exhausted much of what I have to say and my interests will likely turn to other topics and other forums for my writing….[The] majority of us get into a specific ‘stream’ for a while, stay in it until we get bored, something else catches our attention, or we run out of ideas and them move on. […] It’s not a matter of ‘staying power’ but of interest. My guess is eventually my interests and my knowledge will turn to something else.”
This is a beautiful illustration of a rational knowledge-building process. Jim remains interested in a subject for exactly as long as he is learning. The minute his learning in a given area stops, he loses interest in that and finds something else to think about. This is classic learning behaviour, and children’s knowledge grows in the same way, unless the rational process is sabotaged.
Let’s imagine that in the midst of an exciting exploration of a set of ideas, Jim’s parent decides that Jim really should do some of those mathematics problems he has neglected for so long. Jim reluctantly tears himself away from the area which has been occupying his mind in this efficient, constructive, knowledge-building process, and turns to his mathematics textbook. The mind that had been racing now barely crawls, and is subject to many distractions and obstacles along the way. Jim’s heart is not in it. He has been forced to exchange a creative, rational knowledge-building process for externally-imposed performance. The growth of knowledge possible in the latter activity is nothing compared to that possible in the former. This is why I think educational coercion misguided.
Someone else wrote:
“He’s always active and learning and growing for his own betterment. What matters to him is that he’s constantly refining his skills and learning new things.”
How might he be affected if a parent imposed her own curriculum ideas upon him? Isn’t his own internally-motivated process far superiour in terms of the growth of knowledge than one imposed from without?
See also:
- The relationship-building power of explanations
- Doctor, please do not hurt my child
- Is unschooling taking children seriously?
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 1994, ‘What learning looks like’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/what-learning-looks-like