Can anyone identify the learning theory for the private school a friend’s child attends?
I’m familiar with the three major theories of learning, behaviourism (Skinner), constructivism (Piaget) and social-constructivism (Vygotsky), but I was out for drinks with this friend and they mentioned that the child (4 yo, I think) went to a small private school (Nursery - Y6, I think) where they ‘learnt by accident’. I, in retrospect rather stupidly, didn’t press for further information, and I’m intrigued as this never came up in my teacher training, which is all about the Vygotsky (ZPD, etc) currently in vogue for English initial teacher training/School Inspection.
I didn’t feel like a big discussion or debate so I just ignored my sceptical side, but she was quite adamant that ‘learning by accident’ was the best way to learn.
Is it possible that she was mistaking the standard Early Years/Foundation Stage ‘learning through play’ for a whole school approach?
Democratic schools seem like learning happens somewhat accidentally. I think it differs a lot per school, but a woman who taught at the drama school I went to started one in the Netherlands and from her description… well if you learned anything it would probably be by accident.
Hmm… Not sure how one would approach teaching in a school with that philosophy. I was taught that children need to be informed of and understand the learning intentions (We are learning to - WALT) and the objectives (What I am looking for - WILF) so that they were aware of what they were being asked to do and how they should assess their own learning.
As a layman, I’d say that’s pretty much the common sense approach to learning when you raise a child. The child watches you in your everyday activities and becomes more and more involved. This would also include learning to speak.
This approach works less and less well the more academic by nature the subject is, hence the need for formal schooling.
Yeah, so that would raise concerns for me if the school that my friend’s child was at was teaching reading, writing and maths with this as their guiding philosophy. It might be a good way to learn to talk or ride a bike, but its not going to make much sense when you’re learning phonics.
The child is still four, right? It could very well be that they have a different philosophy for teaching things before they get to reading and then use something else for reading.
The “ride a bike” thing was also on the wikipedia, but I don’t buy it. I remember learning to ride a bike and it was certainly not accidental or implicit at all. It was pretty difficult and it definitely felt like learning. I remember getting on a few times and just thinking: how on earth are you meant to not fall over?! And I remember my dad telling me to just get some speed and keep looking at the distance and steer where you want to go. Then I got it and it seemed easy, but the beginning was very obvious, hard-work learning.
Montessori schools are big on “discovery learning,” which sounds pretty much the same. However, the Montessori method is more of a guided process, and their proponents would be offended by the idea that it’s at all accidental and never, ever use that term.