All Children Want to Be Engaged in the World Around Them

It was a beautiful day at a local nursery.  My three-year-old daughter, Dakota, was enjoying the flowers, the huge sandbox, and the sunny day.  The owner of the nursery was just getting the small train ready to run and Dakota was drawn to it.  She walked over and struck up a conversation with the owner, a man in his fifties who was a scientist and botanist.  They began talking about the rocks that made up part of the display.  "This is igneous," the owner said.  "Oooh," said Dakota.  "It has been here for millions of years.  It's called a 'fire rock'."  "Was it made by volcanoes," asked Dakota.  "Yes," he chuckled.  "Was it here when the dinosaurs were here?"

They continued a conversation involving rocks for over 10 minutes.  It was amazing to watch a three-year-old totally engaged in a conversation and learning vocabulary far above her years.  She was into it.  She talked about it for days.

This moment only solidified my belief that children are born ready and willing to learn--and ready to be pushed to great intellectual heights.  So what happens to kids along the way?  Why are so many youth disconnected from learning in educational environments?

For Dakota, the day at the nursery was filled with some elements that I believe are missing from many educational systems.  First, she got to touch, smell, and explore a new world in nature.  Everything at the nursery was hands-on.  She would grab a perennial and say, "Mommy, what is this called.  Let's get this one."  Second, the learning was mixed with fun.  She knew that after choosing our flowers that she would get to play in the sandbox.  Third, it was an opportunity for social engagement.  She spoke with "new friends" that she met in the sandbox, spoke with the owner and other workers.  And fourth, she was given an opportunity to learn from an elder who was excited to share information with her.  I never want her to lose educational opportunities like this.  As a former alternative teacher, now teaching in a mainstream classroom, I see the lack of these opportunities and am committed to developing new ways to provide engaging, hands-on learning for youth.

This blog is dedicated to experiences like this that are found in traditional and alternative classrooms.  Through my work, I've found that disengaged students have a lot to say about why they became disengaged.  When working on the book "Re-enaging Disconnected Youth", I interviewed many alternative school students who said that they had disconnected with education and asked, "What first made you disconnect with school?"  Their answers were astounding.  Some remembered exact moments when a teacher's words or actions struck them deeply and caused them to turn away from the classroom. Some mentioned that school was "boring" and that they wanted to "move around" and interact with others more.  Still others said, "I just don't learn this way.  It doesn't fit my style."

Scholar, Johan Abbott states, "One of the most faulty pervasive assumptions in the Western education system is that actually children don't want to learn and that we have to force learning on them.  And that undermines the whole thing from beginning to end.  The assumption is that learning is quote 'an unnatural activity'.  Really from everything that we now understand, and we didn't need the new science to tell us this, our grandparents knew this, ancient people knew this.  We are an inquisitive species.  We loved to find things out.  We get bored to tears if people tell us too much.  And schools are full of telling because quote 'it's more economic'.  You can have thirty people sitting there in front of a teacher and they tell them a lot.  In fact, the secret to learning is not the lecture it's the conversation...so the faulty assumption is that children don't want to learn and actually that's the exact opposite.  So we have to create an educational system, which feeds the inquisitiveness of children." (Watch the video here.)

I've found that human rights education, multicultural education, hands-on learning, learning from nature, and work with restorative justice Talking Circles have helped dis-engaged students reconnect with school.  Future posts will contain information on each, lesson plan ideas, and interviews with other educators who are working diligently to provide new opportunities for learning.  Opportunities to learn authentically, passionately, and spontaneously.  There will also be opportunities for you to talk about your classrooms--what are you doing to re-engage disconnected students?  What moments "feed the inquisitiveness of children"?