Right before I began homeschooling, I assiduously prepared my little classroom. Tackling the task with gusto, I established a space that mimicked the classrooms of my youth, right down to the American flag proudly displayed in a corner of the room. I began each day with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. It lasted perhaps a month. Without really knowing exactly when things changed, I gradually found our fledgling little school spending more time on the couch, cocooned in a crocheted afghan while enjoying a read-a-aloud book, or squatting outside on the sidewalk to examine a wooly bear caterpillar as it slowly sloughed off to wherever fuzzy caterpillars go. The traditional school day I had planned and prepared for had morphed into something else—something that better reflected the way our son learned. I began to cultivate other educational opportunities that reflected our newfound freedom.
The idea that learning happens only within the hallowed halls of a school while students sit at a desk and read a textbook or listen to a lecture is wrong. John Taylor Gatto, who is well known for his books about education, including Dumbing Us Down and A Different Kind of Teacher, realized this as well. As Andrew Pudewa discovered and read his books for the first time, Gatto’s ideas resonated with him. He wrote of Gatto’s impact in the article “However Imperfectly: Lessons Learned from Thirty Years of Teaching.” I too devoured Gatto’s books, which helped me reshape my son’s learning experiences to include more non-traditional experiential learning opportunities.
While the idea that people have particular learning styles has been called into doubt, providing multiple ways for students to access information for learning is important and especially critical for students who have learning differences, including students with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and those who are gifted. What follows is a list of learning opportunities you might consider. Whether you teach at school or at home, there are multitudinous ways to shape learning experiences. These ideas are just to get you started.
- To nurture a love of nature, schedule regular time outside for students to access a spot they can visit on a weekly basis. Ban electronics and encourage quiet so students can better notice what is silently happening around them. Have them bring notebooks and writing utensils too so they describe through words and pictures what they see, smell, hear, or touch.
- For information that must be memorized, such as multiplication tables, head outside and tie the recitation to movement. Create a multiplication hopscotch grid and have students hop out their math facts. This can be done for any rote information, including states and their capitals, poetry, and even science.
- Rather than just read a play, attend a performance. If there isn’t a performance nearby, watch a video of the play. Be sure to discuss it with your students too.
- When completing desk work, allow students to stand at a tall desk or counter. This may be especially beneficial for students who struggle with executive functioning.
- Allow for plenty of physical activity throughout the day. Students thrive when they aren’t contained in a classroom for the entire day. Moving helps the brain coalesce instruction and make sense of it.
- Introduce art into your instruction. Offer clay and have your students sculpt a water molecule or craft a creature from a story they’ve read or listened to. Have students draw a scene from history or a novel and then describe their drawing to their classmates.
- Introduce opportunities for memorization. Provide poems to remember and recite. This helps students grow their vocabularies, learn about poetic devices, and expand their syntax. IEW’s Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization is a fabulous resource for this type of experience.
- For older students, cultivate opportunities for apprenticeship. Reach out to people in your community, whether it be a shop owner, artist, HVAC repair person, veterinarian, or someone else who would welcome a student observing and assisting for a period of time.
- Facilitate a language-rich environment wherever you are. Introduce a speech and debate program. Direct a play. Recite poetry. Read to your students and reserve time for your students to read (or listen to books) for themselves. And of course, write. The more opportunities students have to encounter high quality language, the better! Do you need some book ideas? Check out IEW’s Book Recommendations.
- Remember that learning extends beyond the core curriculum. Introduce opportunities for students to learn bicycle or car maintenance, babysitting skills, culinary arts, first aid, sewing skills, knitting or crochet, or dance. Learning a musical instrument benefits the mind in many ways.
- Don’t discount technical school. Shop, drafting, HVAC, plumbing, and other technical skills are in demand, and your students may discover they thrive with these more hands-on opportunities to learn. If your high school doesn’t offer this type of opportunity, cast a broader net in your community to investigate what may be available.
- Inspire civic engagement by providing opportunities for students to volunteer in their school or community. Students can become tutors. They can clean up senior citizens’ yards. They can hold bake sales for local charities. Take time to brainstorm with your students ways in which they can help others and then support them in their efforts by scheduling time and encouraging your students as they serve.
Keep in mind that there is no set clock or any set age for learning to happen. Opportunities to learn are all around us. Cultivate an attitude of being a lifelong learner yourself and model it for your students. As you do, you will find that learning never becomes rote, nor does it become boring. Instead, one learning opportunity leads to another. Before you know it, you’ve cultivated your own classroom of dedicated autodidacts.
by Jennifer Mauser
