Eight Things About Gardening With Your Kids, Part 3
Interest Enhances Learning - Light the Fire
I am writing a series of posts about the eight principles of education integrated into the design and activities of Hershey Children’s Garden and how you can use these principles with your kids.
Principle Three: lighting the fire. A parent once gave me a great definition for "education." "Education," he said "is not about conveying facts, but about lighting a fire." People, in general, absorb knowledge and gain skills in the things that interest them. This may seem like common sense, but I have found that common sense is not so common. In the Hershey Children’s Garden, we attempt to engage children’s interests in two main ways. First, we provide intriguing spaces in which a child feels comfortable.
Bright colors are groovy, but more important is scale and detail. Adults walk into the Garden and are swept away in gorgeous vistas of tree houses, wildflowers and all the beauty that surrounds them. Meanwhile, their four-year-old is following the ant crawling across the ground or is captivated by the fish and frogs in the pond. The scale of a space must be small and intimate.
The second way we engage children’s interest is through teachable moments. For the young especially, the whole world is filled with wonder and can serve as a starting point for learning science, social studies and math.
So, what can you do? Well, I would say start by noticing what interests your childen and build on that knowledge. They love bugs? Cool! So do I. Let’s see where they live! They live in plants. What do insects do for the plants? What do the plants do for the insects? Suddenly, we move from creepy crawlies to pollination or some other ecological subject. Make sense? Good. Now, go ignite your kids’ interest in nature!
Posted by Josh Steffen
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March 15th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
As an educator of young children, I have found that when I show my excitement for learning about plants, insects, butterflies, birds, and for nature in general, that excitement “rubs off” or transfers onto my students. When a child is excited to show me a real leaf that he or she found on his or her way to school, that child remembers the lesson that we had about trees. When a child is excited to show me a picture that he or she has drawn of a caterpillar that he or she saw on a flower growing in his or her own backyard, that child remembers the lesson that we had on the changes that a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. When a child is excited to show me a tomato plant that he or she has grown from a seed found in a tomato that he or she ate for lunch, that “little green thumb” is ready to plant it in our school garden and watch it grow to produce a new tomato!
When children are excited to tell you, on their own, about things that they have learned or things that they want to learn, which are oftentimes extensions of what is being taught to them in class, without being given an assignment to do so, that, to me, is what is meant by “lighting the fire” of education. At Villa Montessori Center, the teachers wish to continue to excite the children about gardening and ignite their interest in nature. The children, along with the teachers and staff, will work together to grow our Children’s Garden at our school this coming season. I am planning and looking forward to taking the children at Villa Montessori Center on a spring visit to the Hershey Children’s Garden!
I am thoroughly enjoying receiving all of the info provided by the Garden’s new blog! Thanks a bunch!
March 18th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I agree Joan. This requires a lot more attunement if you will to each kid. I love to do this especially with children who return over and over to the Garden over the course of a season.