Poonam Patnaik on teaching our young learners to thrive
As the impact of COVID-19 continues, the importance of developing children to be independent thinkers who genuinely want to learn is crystal clear. This is something that is important at anytime, of course. The pandemic has, however, brought this into sharper perspective.
True independent study is something that many young people don’t experience until they get to university level. But, why is this? The careers of today, and undoubtedly of the future, rarely involve 100% instruction in what you need to do – instead you are required to take initiative and be a self-starter. Now more than ever young people are being required to self-motivate and it’s therefore critical that even the youngest learners have the ability and independence to take ownership for driving their education forward.
This independence should start in the classroom, but can be continued at home through parental encouragement. Our early years teachers aim to put students in the driving seat of their learning right from day one. The PYP develops well-rounded, resilient and independent young people.
Poonam Patnaik
But what do we mean by agency? Agency is the ability for young learners to have more direction over their learning; they are encouraged to reflect on what they have learnt and the actions they have taken to develop a better understanding of why, how and what they learn.
For example, one of the six PYP units of inquiry is ‘How we express ourselves’ and this year, as we cannot visit theatres, the High School drama students put on a production for our Lower school students. When the younger students came back to the classroom, they were asked some teacher-led questions to help them reflect on ‘how we express ourselves’ and make the connection between what they are learning and what they had just seen. Open-ended questions like ‘What did you think?’, ‘What was the purpose of that?’, ‘Why did we go there?’ and ‘What did you learn?’ give children time to ponder and reflect but also encourage them to be the ones asking the questions. In this way, we are developing inquisitive minds that want to learn, not just have to learn.
Show Racism The Red Card
As well as reflection, action is another important aspect of developing independent learners. The Lower School has been focussing on the ‘Who We Are’ PYP unit of inquiry, where students look into the nature of the self and what it means to be human. The class chooses a topic or scenario that is close to their lives and, this year, across the board the children decided they wanted to focus on the Black Lives Matter movement.
Collectively, the students and their teacher decided they would work towards raising awareness via the show the Racism the Red Card day and, from there, the project was entirely led by the children – from coming up with new creative ways to fundraise in light of COVID restrictions, to making posters and writing communications for the parents, it was a completely student-led project.
Developing independent thinkers and learners in the classroom is one step, but to really accelerate children’s confidence in driving their own learning, it’s important that parents are equipped to continue this style of learning at home.
Some creative ways parents can encourage their child’s independent learning skills, include:
Questions, questions questions: Each day, if you are able, ask your child open questions like ‘what one thing you learned that was really important for you today?’, ‘what did you find interesting?’, ‘how will you apply what you’ve learnt?’ Encourage them to reflect on their learning and, as a result, you will inspire excitement and interest
Create space for conversation: As well as asking questions, be prepared to answer them! Student voice means that children are encouraged to share their learning and opinions but this only works if parents can show an interest and engage in the conversation
Take their advice: Let your child to be the ‘spokesperson’ of the house. When it comes to issues like Black Lives Matter that children are talking and thinking about at school, let them educate you on the topic – value their opinions and knowledge and you might just learn something too!
The benefit of this is that we are developing independent learners who can articulate their thoughts and have the confidence to express them without worrying about making a mistake.
These are skills they will take with them right through their school years to university and beyond.
Ms Grace encouraging individual expression
As we all pray that the world soon returns to some form of normality, I sincerely hope aspects of independent learning will become more widely embedded into education and the curriculum going forward. When the road ahead is so unclear, it’s critical our children are prepared with skills to navigate it.