What if people of all ages could learn everything they ever needed to know on their own, simply by tinkering? There's no doubt that we can learn a lot without any formal instruction or assistance, but not all of us have the genius of Michael Faraday (one of "Six Uneducated Amateurs Whose Genius Changed the World") or Kelvin Doe, the African teen who taught himself how to build batteries, generators and transmitters:
The rest of us ordinary mortals usually find that tinkering only takes us so far. Eventually, we get stuck and our learning levels off. Maybe we don't care because we're content with the level of learning we've achieved. For example, I learned all I wanted to know about paper quilling from a Klutz book and a few afternoons of tinkering. Then again, maybe we will care a great deal, because our passion is to become the best writer, mathematician, or musician we have it in us to be. When my music-loving daughter wanted to take her self-taught guitar playing skills to the next level, she sought help from a professional musician.
As Alan Kay pointed out in this week's Learning Creative Learning session on "Powerful Ideas," there are many difficult concepts (such as calculus) and advanced techniques that have taken all of humanity hundreds of years to figure out. Our knowledge depends upon the knowledge of all those who came before us. (I think this is why, when we talk about education, we tend to make a list of Things Everyone Needs to Know. Intuitively, we equate being well educated with knowing enough about the accumulated knowledge of the world to be able to build upon it.)
So, when play and experimentation are not enough, when we see that our students are stuck and need to tap into the "knowledge of the world" before they can achieve higher levels of understanding and mastery, what is the best way to assist them?
In his written remarks, Powerful Ideas Need Love Too! (1995), Kay recommends creating "an embedded environment with visiting experts." Although he had a school setting in mind, home educators can also create an "embedded environment" with a combination of high quality materials and appropriate role models, as I've described in earlier posts (Nurturing Interest-Based Learning and Math-Speaking" Adults as Role Models).
A home educator's "visiting experts" are the martial arts instructors, music and art teachers, librarians, professional writers, lawyers, police and fire officers, veterinarians, nurses, and many others who share their expertise with us. We may also turn to the public school teachers who work as tutors on the side: my son—formerly a "stuck" writer— looks forward to his weekly meetings with a talented young English teacher who facilitates a writing workshop for homeschooled teens. (It's hard to tell who enjoys the experience more, the teacher or the students.)
The rest of us ordinary mortals usually find that tinkering only takes us so far. Eventually, we get stuck and our learning levels off. Maybe we don't care because we're content with the level of learning we've achieved. For example, I learned all I wanted to know about paper quilling from a Klutz book and a few afternoons of tinkering. Then again, maybe we will care a great deal, because our passion is to become the best writer, mathematician, or musician we have it in us to be. When my music-loving daughter wanted to take her self-taught guitar playing skills to the next level, she sought help from a professional musician.
As Alan Kay pointed out in this week's Learning Creative Learning session on "Powerful Ideas," there are many difficult concepts (such as calculus) and advanced techniques that have taken all of humanity hundreds of years to figure out. Our knowledge depends upon the knowledge of all those who came before us. (I think this is why, when we talk about education, we tend to make a list of Things Everyone Needs to Know. Intuitively, we equate being well educated with knowing enough about the accumulated knowledge of the world to be able to build upon it.)
In his written remarks, Powerful Ideas Need Love Too! (1995), Kay recommends creating "an embedded environment with visiting experts." Although he had a school setting in mind, home educators can also create an "embedded environment" with a combination of high quality materials and appropriate role models, as I've described in earlier posts (Nurturing Interest-Based Learning and Math-Speaking" Adults as Role Models).
A home educator's "visiting experts" are the martial arts instructors, music and art teachers, librarians, professional writers, lawyers, police and fire officers, veterinarians, nurses, and many others who share their expertise with us. We may also turn to the public school teachers who work as tutors on the side: my son—formerly a "stuck" writer— looks forward to his weekly meetings with a talented young English teacher who facilitates a writing workshop for homeschooled teens. (It's hard to tell who enjoys the experience more, the teacher or the students.)
"When freedom, choice and individuality are introduced into teaching, it can be wonderful for everyone involved."—Grace Llewellyn, The Teenage Liberation Handbook, p. 67"Visiting experts" don't replace playing, experimenting and tinkering; they enrich it. The expert's role is to help students see what they might have missed, to share knowledge that will get students to the next level in their thinking and learning.
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