Learning By Doing

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 9, 4 December 1931, Page 9

Learning By Doing

Many times we find very efficient parents bringing up an inefficient child. Possibly the very ability on the parent’s part to do things quickly, to think and act quickly tends to make them impatient with the minute details necessary in child rearing and through their impatience they do the thing for the child rather than take the time to win the response from him. It is so much easier for any mother to take the little spoon and feed the baby rather than to wait patiently for him to fumble his way through to its correct handling. But when mother takes the spoon and feeds him, is she giving him any help on the use of fork or spoon or upon his later table manners ? Children learn only by doing and by much doing. This is perhaps one of the hardest lessons for both teachers and parents to learn. The game of dressing, of eating, of bathing, and all the rest takes any amount of time and patience. Each step of the process must be mastered before the next step begins. Some children learn to manipulate their spoon or fork or to lace their shoes in quicker time than others. Without allowing the child to dawdle his way through, the parent or teacher may give very definite directions and helps, see that the materials at hand are all in working order, then keep her hands off. Every child in this world loves to do things for himself. It rather annoys him to have mother or big brother or sister interfering with this right. A normal child not only loves to do things for himself, but, if rightly guided, loves to do things for others. Many children, at a very young age, help mother clear off the table, dust the chairs, wipe the dishes. Each task is making him more helpful and efficient, even if it takes the mother a bit longer to complete her work. It is the same at school. No real teacher has the slightest difficulty in arousing in children a desire to want to do things. The errands in the schoolroom and school building are a joy to them. Each errand don helps the child to exp ,- ess himself more definitely, to handle tools more efficiently, to learn dii'ections more accurately. If every teacher and mother in this country went on the time-saving plan and took the easiest way of doing the thing for themselves, what a helpless, inefficient lot cf children we would have! If children are to learn by doing, let us provide them with the

doing plans, guiding and directing them wisely, but keeping our hands off during the doing process.