The Importance of Cultivating, Not Forcing, Learning
“[Education] is much more like gardening than engineering. If you’re a gardener, you don’t make it grow, the plant grows itself… if you create the right conditions.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Most Likely to Succeed
How do you get a plant to grow? You put it in the best soil you can find. You give it just the right amount of water and sunlight. You make sure its climate is not too hot or too cold.
If you yell “Grow!” at a plant, that won’t make it grow. If you try and force a plant to grow, that won’t make it grow.
So why do we do this when trying to get children to grow? Is it possible that through the rigid standardization of education, by making kids learn in one specific way, that we are actually preventing them from growing?
Children are curious creatures. They are born natural learners. When they are young, they quickly learn through discovery and experimentation how to speak and communicate with others, how to live in their environments, and how to make new friends. In Sugata Mitra’s famous hole in the wall experiment, he placed a computer in a wall of his city, without instructions. As it turns out, kids not only were curious about what this mysterious screen was, but actually taught themselves and others to use it. Because out in the world, kids are learners.
So why is it that inside the classroom, by the time kids have reached elementary school, middle school, or high school that their senses of learning start to shut down? And how do we reinvigorate their curiosity and creativity? As Sir Ken Robinson says, maybe we have to try gardening instead of engineering.
Maybe this involves reducing the culture of stress that is often central to the school environment. Maybe it involves enabling kids to connect what they are learning to their own lives and to the world. Maybe it involves letting them ask questions that don’t have answers yet. Maybe it involves personalizing their learning experiences to their own interests and skill levels.
Yes, these changes and others would all be a significant departure from the way the education system functions today. But if we are helping our kids learn better, I would say change is worth it. Because our kids are worth it.
