What is True Learning?

“True learning...is an exciting act. When it is occurring, kids get excited and enthusiastic: they laugh, make tolerable levels of noise, and have trouble staying in their seats...The child wants to share the joy. Shouldn't we expect the youngster to behave the same way in school? In many classrooms, though, enthusiasm is seen as a deterrent to order; kids are forbidden to learn in their own natural style." 

Cain, M.S. (1988). Education and personal power. Contemporary Education 59 (4), 215-218.

I’ve been an admission director at private schools for over 15 years.  When parents are applying to schools for their preschooler or Kindergartener, inevitable the question arises:  “What do you want for your child in an educational setting.”  Most parents answer something like this:

She is so excited about learning now.  She is so joyful and so enthusiastic and I want to see that continue.  I don’t want her enthusiasm and creativity turned off.  She loves going to school and I want her to have that love of learning for as long as possible.

And when parents come looking at private schools for their older children -- children who have begun in other schools, sometimes public sometimes private, inevitably the question arises: “Why are you looking for a change?”

He just isn’t happy.  He doesn’t want to go to school.  All school is to him is a series of have-to’s.  There is no enthusiasm.  He used to be so excited about learning, and now, school is a chore.

Why do kids start out excited about learning, joyful, curious, engaged, and slowly lose that momentum?  Why do we so often accept that as a natural progression?

There is a Staples advertisement that often plays at the end of the summer as families prepare to go back to school in which kids trudge, downtrodden, demoralized, and depressed, through the store, while their parents dance about filling a shopping card as they prepare for back-to-school.  I deplore this ad.  It perpetuates, as a standard, that school is the end of fun.  That school is something to be avoided for as long as possible. And, worst of all, it implies that parents can’t wait to get rid of their kids and that kids reluctantly, and sadly, go back school.  Where is the enthusiasm and the joy in learning?  Why do we accept that school is a forced march? 

As the world continues to change at a pace beyond imagination, being a learner for one’s whole life is the one skill our children must have to be successful throughout their lives.  Why not make sure we retain the joy and enthusiasm as well?

I realize that not everyday, not every moment, is going to be perfectly wonderful, but on the whole, school should be a place of enthusiasm and energy. When you look at your child's school look for some messiness and some noise. Look for enthusiasm. And most importantly look for joy!