Colorado Academy - Telesis Yearbook (Denver, CO)

Page 76 text:

On Education Learning is an individual experience. No one can do it vicariously for someone else. The person doing the learning must be actively involved in whatever is going on to derive the greatest benefit from the situ- ation. This is particularly true of elementary age children. Sitting still and keepin silent are not natu- ral normal things for young chiFdren to do. No one denies that these disciplines must be acquired also, but in gradual small doses! Elementary age children must be allowed the freedom to move about the classroom, to discover and explore, to use the ph si- cal equipment available in most subject areas andlto discuss their findings with their classmates. I kee thinking of a statement made by a very dear frienclli William P. Hull, an educator of unusual qualifica- tions: Who needs the most practice in school talking? The kids. And who gets it? The teachers! How right he is! There is an old chinese proverb, I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. With this firmly in mind, most learning situations in the lower school revolve around two basic rules: Ill use the equipment with care and concern, C23 and at no time bother or interrupt any- one else who is working. Learning in the mathematics laboratory takes place in many ways. There are games requiring logi- cal thinking and strategy to win. There are games requiring the skills of arithmetic and are designed to improve the child who is slow and unsure of facts that are still very necessary. There are materials for exploration - mileage markers, trundle wheels Iwalking yard sticksl, simple surveying tools and measuring equipment - for developing the ability to estimate and then measure accurately with stand- ard devices. There are many sets of blocks - algeb- raic, multibase, pattern, attribute, Cuisenaire, prisms, and cubes - to show in concrete situations many of the ideas inherent in mathematics. The abil- ity to see pattern and structure is vital to the study of math, if the child is to see and understand the beau- ty and the fun of this normally hated subject. There are team games and individual projects. The children work by themselves at times, and together with a partner or in small groups for some activities. Rarely are two children ready for the same concept at the same time, and if they are, differences imme- diately show up in the depth or the degree of so- phistication into which one or the other can stretch his thinking. This type of learning demands that a teacher know his students so well that at any given moment he can say, lon is ready to multiply two digit numbers, or joe still needs more work with the multibase blocks before he can abstract the ideas of a base structure and work with just paper and pencil. It means having a wealth of materials, physical and printed, on hand and ready to use at a moment's notice. It means being willin to sit down with a child and listen instead of doing are talking. It means encouraging original and creative thinking when it comes to problem solving and hel ing the children discover man ways to approach the same problem. It means alfbwing the children to help each other in these discoveries, kids often relate better and more activel to their peers than to an adult. It means being1willing to admit mistakes, and being able to enjoy t e excitement of discovery with the child. Sometimes it requires makin deliberate mistakes or creatin chaos out of which can come the most profitable?earning situations. And it some- times means allowing a child to hang himself with an idea before stepping in with a suggestion for correction. Children are such individuals, and learning can be a naturally exciting, stimulating, and rewarding situ- ation for them when we, as teachers, show them that we have confidence not only in their ability to learn, but in their desire to do so. There are several excellent books on learning which I urge all thinking people to read, and I par- ticularly would encouratge anyone considerirgf teachin as a career to rea : john Holt's How Chil - ren Faigand also How Children Learn, Johathon Kozol's Death At An Early Age, james Herdon's The Way It Spozed To Be, and Herbert Kohl's 36 Child- ren. Perhaps you won't agree with all they have to say, but after reading them it is very difficult to look at children the same way as before! I attended a college where the educational philos- ophy was Learning b Doing. I did not fully appre- ciate it at the time, but I havelnever been more grateful for the experience than in these past few years, when the children I have worked with have made me realize what an exciting, vibrant approach to learning this philosophy can be. fn-5. fllanm Q C'Aa.1-Lumen-cc

Page 75 text:

H 1 y. R Mrs. Klaus Meyer Mr. Marco A. Soto Mrs. Winfield Miller -A-... Mr. Cambell Witherspoon I 'Q Mrs. Beverly Yoder 71 I i 3

Page 77 text:

MIDDLE SCHOGL