Facilitating Serendipity and Enhancing Learning with Extracurricular Activities

What do you elect to do? What are you passionate about? What interests you?

These are questions I’ve found can help students discover and develop an interest in something new, which is a rewarding experience to be a part of. A master teacher who I work with once called this "facilitating serendipity"—that moment when a child experiences true enjoyment during a learning moment.

A wide variety of sports, activities and arts can bring joy to children of all ages, while also improving skills, and cognitive ability. Research shows that music can have a positive impact on intellectual development and even improve math scores in some cases. For many students, music education was once limited to courses offered by his or her local school. However, thanks to innovation in technology and education, world-class music instruction is now possible and accessible beyond classroom walls.

For example, programs like Juilliard eLearning now give students and adult lifelong learners the option to take virtual music courses developed by leading educators and e-learning experts in collaboration with teachers, composers, musicians and maestros from the legendary Juilliard School.

Hands-on experiences offer additional opportunities for extracurricular exploration. For example, many children are interested in concepts and potential jobs in the area of aviation—they dream of being a pilot flying a plane or the challenge of creating a flying object. While students can learn about the concepts of flight from a textbook, supplementing this education with real world, hands-on experiences can bring the possibilities to life and ignite a child’s interests and passions.

For example, last month, my school met for its very first Aeronautics Club meeting. The students got to build their own free flight gliders and watch them soar under the guidance of members from the National Free Flight Society. This was a very exciting experience for the aviation-enthused children in the group. One of my students even quipped, “This is the second best thing that I have done in my life!”

In the past year, we’ve taken our students on more than 25 field trips to provide these types of experiences. Excursions included everything from farms to museums to factories, to caves, parks, hatcheries, recycling centers and even TV stations. These hands-on experiences create an ideal environment to spark a children’s imagination and build dreams to chase, which is some of the best fuel for learning.