To learn something, brain needs FREEDOM.
Why?
Because brain wants to observe freely, it will look into areas and make patterns. and next step is to experiment and play.
Playing is essentially, failing many times, and learning each time.
Play example small child ball
For example, when a small child, plays with a ball for the first time. It throws the ball and observes how the ball goes ahead.
He learns, that a forward motion will throw the ball forward.
He then throws the ball, from bottom to top and learns that this way, ball comes back down.
Now, this whole process is done, freely, without any major instruction, strict schedule, sequence.
i mean a child picks up a ball, and throws it as he likes.
It is this FREE MOVEMENT, where child FREELY makes mistakes (aKA experiements) and have failures (AKA OUTCOMES AKA learnings).
If a child had to learn this through classroom standardized way of learning, it will take a lot of time. Simply because in order to follow the sequence, the whole process of experimentation, is delayed, and lack of freedom to choose where to start and how to do, also is not RELEVANT to the brain.
When the Brain is free, it automatically finds place to start that is suitable and relevant for him.
Another reason why a child learns about the ball if plays with FREEDOM is because there are no STAKES involved. A child does know much about stakes when he is small, he DOES things without WORRYING about outcomes. Because he has nt learnt about risks and loosing.
And that is why, he does nt fear making MISTAKES, that’s why he does nt FEAR PLAYING (experimenting) and that’s why he does nt
As we grow up, we learn about negative outcomes through bad experiences, and we become more cautious. Sometimes we OVERDO it. Negatives stuck more than positives and we streamline things, and put them into “discipline” in order to
Now, my question to everyone as adults and in control of education system and school is. Are we applying these principles in our SCHOOLS ?
no! we are not.
Schools lack flexibility and experiments. The structure and sequence, and standardized pace does not suit all children equally.
Besides, for some children, there is no context and backstory to what they are learning. So there is NO OBSERVATION and NO INTEREST in that topic.
For example, if you take mathematics for instance, the numbers
I am not saying that textbooks, curriculums, or data has no use. It has a good use AFTER one has experienced that topic/skil in real life. DATA and information is useful to make MARGINAL gains later on in the stage of learning.