Wednesday 29 January 2014

Why should I be a brave learner?

After speaking to the children at assembly for several weeks about bravery, I was delighted to have a return match from a class who shared their own stories of bravery with us all, and were clearly pleased with their courage and success. Much overdue, I thought this was worth considering in a little more detail.

Being brave is something which was, in all likelihood, introduced to us as toddlers as a negative concept. We were expected to be brave about things that seemed frightening, painful or unknown, like spiders, grazes or vaccinations, and the fearful feelings that being brave gave us will have been difficult to shake ever since. It is therefore human nature to protect ourselves from activities that go beyond our confidence, comfort or enjoyment. It is trained into us from very young that being brave should always to be considered in the light of possible harmful outcome, pain or failure.

However, we also know that our own success is likely to be limited if we don’t shake ourselves from our comfort zone, embrace things we are not certain about and make ourselves have a go. Very few people have the ability to take risks comfortably. Some do however, and I must say, it is with great admiration that I watch people undertaking extreme sports, pressurised challenges or developing inventive or even crazy ideas. For most of us, bravery means having a go at something small, measured and slightly unfamiliar. We live in a world of due diligence, calculated risk and critical evaluation. It is no wonder that our children would expect to be provided with solid answers and proven paths rather than have to think for themselves, or be challenged to create new knowledge, and that we, in our own insecurity, urge them to follow our paths and not their own. 

In fact, giving praise only for producing correct and accurate work has become so endemic in our education process that we have effectively side-lined real creative thinking and getting things right by getting them wrong. We no longer prize working concepts through, or having mad ideas. We have eschewed inspiration, wild imagining and unlikely connections made in lightning flashes, for more prosaic standard ‘correct’ answers, with the onus on the teacher to cover and inculcate every possibility rather than allowing the child to explore. I fear for children who cannot see past the need to be taught the right answer, who choose not to be brave in their learning, who are afraid to have a go or to face the possibility of short term failure up as one of the options for what might happen – and cope with that. I worry that we, as teachers and parents, reinforce these fears (perhaps because of our own training), despite the fact that we probably know that real independence, valuable learning and true entrepreneurship comes from being brave, striking out independently and doing something, or even thinking something, that might be seen as different. Bravery allows that leap of faith into the unknown, into the world of potential success and into that essential place where we can, as human learners, really come to know ourselves and  our strengths and see what needs to be overcome. Only by being brave and by experiencing the consequences with courage, can we develop into whole and incredible people. 

I’m not speaking here of foolhardiness, of wanton danger, or of misplaced confidence, I’m simply talking about opening the mind to something new, rather than closing it due to inexperience, or by placing too much store on outward success by only attempting what can easily be achieved. In terms of learning behaviour it is sadly all too common to see children hang back, to say they are not sure when asked a question, or to be coy when expected to express an opinion, rather than having the courage to have a go. often a teacher knows full well that a child has the ability and intellect to do more, and it is a real sadness when that child is waiting for one of her peers to answer instead. 

So for the future, it is worth considering doing something that requires brave learning behaviour. Make or find some opportunities to do something which you wouldn’t usually do, or accept a learning challenge that feels a little bit mad. You could embark on this experience with your child, or just quietly on your own. I spoke to a mum this week who is attempting her first marathon, to a teacher who has agreed to prepare and lead the staff prayers although she has never done such a thing before, to members of staff who have signed up to the staff choir to learn to sing together for a public performance with no previous music reading ability, and to a child about to go to her first ski school with a great fear of heights. In the classroom I listened to six year olds trying to reply to their teacher in Spanish amid much hilarity and some fabulous accents - real bravery in action, especially from a new girl who had only attended one lesson and wanted to take her turn. I was shamed from my position as wallflower and had a go - and although my accent was not as good as the children's, they applauded me, and I was delighted that I had left my anxiety on the side to show my nerve. What these people have in common isn’t just wilful bravery; it is the anticipation of great enjoyment, satisfaction and confidence in themselves, and a fantastic learning experience.

Good luck to you all in your next courageous learning step – remember that failure is a helpful learning option, that it will be a challenge, that success is often better if it is surprising - and who knows, you might even enjoy yourself!





Thursday 9 January 2014

Why is it important to be bored?

“A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring” Michel de Montaigne

There have been many articles in the popular press this week about allowing children to be bored. I thought it might be useful for us as educators and parents to have a chance to consider the educational reasons why allowing children unstructured time is not only important, but essential.  

Firstly, we all know the adage that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. This may well be true, but invention and indeed all of human endeavour is only possibly if it can be imagined. Imagination is something that we can feed with ideas and technical understanding, but imagination is only truly possible in the spaces when we can be openly reflective. Imagination is an active internal process which connects concrete ideas, past experience, diverse inspiration and personal creativity, to create something new. It takes perseverance, time and self-motivation. In truth, imagination is the mother of invention. It is a critical faculty for learning and for success in life. The best time for imagination is not the pressure of requiring a solution, it is the time you have nothing else to do.

As human beings we inhabit many spheres, but it is useful in this case to imagine the difference between an inner creative thinking and imagining life, and a world of external learning stimuli, activities and experiences. It is the relationship between the two that creates a whole person. However, we have become accustomed to listening to the noise of that external world as if it holds all the keys to life, and rejecting the internal voice. How many of us put on music or television to stave off those moments when we might have to engage with our inner selves and run the risk of feeling bored? Two seconds of relative peace and we take out a phone to check, or to text or to chat with someone else. We have become so afraid of boredom that we frantically fill all of our time, and feel guilty if we don’t. We also want to save our own children from boredom, and in doing so we are stealing away their inner lives and their vital connections to themselves. If we fear that without external activities they may in fact become nothing, then we will be impelled to fill their lives for them and we will be creating in them a greater fear of being alone and being unoccupied, and of being unable to cope with just thinking and being themselves. We will have made them dependent and in fact we may even have enabled them to become lonely, unfulfilled and unhappy in later life.

Dr Laura Markham refers to the need for unstructured time, because children have so many activities to complete, often one or two on each night of the week after a full structured day at school, plus homework. She explains how structured time closes off the imagination and the ability to be self-determining, it makes them lack confidence in their own abilities and unable to be independent. The result of keeping children fully immersed in set activities  is that it  models to them that they can only succeed, or have fun, in structured ways, where they have little control and not much need of self-motivation, other than to compete (hopefully successfully) against the other children placed there to do the same. Whilst it can of course promote skills and team spirit, there needs to be a balance if that same child is ever going to have the imagination to develop strategic play or to be able to transfer skills to other situations. Being always involved in structured activity and games can stifle individuality and reinforces the need to comply rather than to innovate.

Boredom is a creative state. Dr Teresa Belton writing for the BBC admits that boredom can initially feel like an uncomfortable state, especially as modern life makes us unused to it. But by giving in to that feeling (in the same way as we give in to that extra chocolate or to any other unhealthy habit) we take a further step away from developing the creativity we would all love to have, through a quick fix. It is far more honest to accept that we all find certain things boring, even necessary things, but we have to develop inner resources to cope. I am sure many of you will agree that there are many chores we have to just get on and do despite very low interest level – I often long for a Sunday night without ironing!

It is easy to fall into that trap of feeling guilty about not doing enough for your child and therefore planning activities and events to ensure they are fully occupied in all of their free time. Filling the house with music and noise equally provides a (welcome?) distraction from one’s own thoughts. It is no wonder then, that screen time (of every sort) has become a useful filler for those empty seconds of the day and the evening. As a teacher with 28 years’ experience I would say that children in general have shorter attention spans and more requirements to be helped, supported and constantly stimulated than ever before. Imagination is undervalued and children expect constant attention and reinforcement even to get on with what they can easily achieve alone. When faced with anything they don’t understand or feel to be hard work they say they are bored. This is one of the results of constant stimulation, it becomes an addiction, alongside an underlying nagging tiredness that creeps into children’s lives when they don’t have time for adequate reflection, rest and recreation.

Maria Montessori wrote about free play (which modern children often claim is boring) enabling children to become active and in an alert and receptive frame of mine, and she demonstrated that children are adept at self-regulating and managing their own rules, and that they performed better in all areas if they were allowed the full scope of their imagination. Children who can play without intervention, and manage their own time, are calmer, more thoughtful and are able to be more articulate as they have time to rehearse ideas and to think things through. They are able to make their own positive decisions and are far less reliant on adult approval before moving on or turning the next page over. Montessori went so far as to say that play is a child’s work.

Finally, children say they are bored for many reasons, but an important one to note is that they would actually like a little of your attention. When is the last time, for no real reason other than just for the joy of being together, you danced with your child?