Kingdom Education

The importance of doing.

Education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment. The task of the teacher becomes that of preparing a series of motives of cultural activity, spread over a specially prepared environment, and then refraining from obtrusive interference.

Maria Montesorri

I’ve been reading a lot lately about active learning. This is me ‘brain dumping’ some of it and the ties to Scripture I see.

Here’s to practicing what we preach.

First, a description of some basic forms of active learning. It seems education has been shifting (for decades now) from a predominantly content-centered format to a learning-centered format (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014). In other words, teachers used to lecture a whole lot, which led to many issues for graduates who experienced difficulties in applying the content they learned to real-life work situations. Now teachers are encouraged to use active learning strategies to encourage the application of real-world problems to content knowledge.

Here are some of the strategies (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014):

• SQ3R for reading
• Teach using discussions
• Peer tutoring
• Think-pair-share
• The learning pair
• Online groups
• The case method
• Problem-based learning
• Games and simulations
• Field experience

“To teach is to help someone learn.”

Marilla Svinicki and Wilbert McKeachie

Now that some examples of active learning have been laid out, we can consider the implications. As educators of any form, I’m sure many of us (and our students) have felt they wished knowledge could just be transferred by joining our foreheads together and bamm … we both understand the same thing. However, the shift that has occurred over the last 30 years has led many to believe in the necessity of doing for learning. Taking a look back at the list, what stands out? Go ahead and become an active learner by engaging with the concept I am presenting. When you compare and contrast those strategies, what determination can you make? Can you determine what is required of the learner when they engage with those strategies? Theres no one-word answer. There’s not one right answer either. Together can learn well from each other if we reflect and then relate our understanding, with an open mind, willing to engage in respectful dialogue. This is a big part of active learning.

There is no such thing as genuine knowledge and fruitful understanding except as the offspring of doing. The analysis and rearrangement of facts which is indispensable to the growth of knowledge … cannot be attained purely mentally—just inside the head. Men have to do something to the things when they wish to find out something.

John Dewey

How can this be applied to home education? Whereas in brick and mortar schools there are so many distractions from the actual business of learning, in our home education programs, we are acutely focused on what our children are actually learning (which is not always and sometimes not ever reflected in grades or standardized testing). It also seems to me that this kind of learning comes very natural to the home education family. Perhaps because these are more realistic of how the world works.

Something else that sticks out to me is the nature of the strategies. In your earlier analysis did you also notice how many of them are community based? By this I mean we learn better by doing and also by sharing this learning time, with others or with ourselves. When I interact with something by writing about it, I can guarantee that I will remember the concept better. If I get to talk with someone who is also studying it and analyze it together, it’s another level for me. It seems this is true for many others as well.

So let’s test this concept of learning by doing against Scripture.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

James (Ya’aqob) 1:22-25

And He answering, said to them, “My mother and My brothers are those who are hearing the Word of Elohim and doing it.”

Luke 8:21

For everyone partaking of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
But solid food is for the mature whose senses have been trained by practice to discern both good and evil.

Hebrews 5:13-14

We cannot make Scripture true in our lives by the simple hearing of a teaching, or even by just reading our Scriptures. We have to make it real by making some big choices in our every day lives. We have to make those choices, being trained by practice to apply His Word, share what we learn with others, and see how we can work together to gain greater levels of understanding.

Shalom!