I couldn’t help but think about the question, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” when thinking about our educational adventures last week. Of course in this situation it was, “What comes first – activity or content?”
My usual educational mode is to read, read, read about a subject and then incorporate hands-on activity to solidify what they are learning. While I sometimes intimidate people and give the impression that we are always busy with fun, super creative ideas, most days will find us curled up on the couch, reading for our ‘school time’. Often times learning that is too heavy on ‘activity’ and low on the content, while fun, doesn’t lead to lasting retention of anything other than ‘fun times’. There really needs to be a marriage between activity and content with dialogue to insure that the combination is resulting in understanding. But one doesn’t necessarily always have to proceed the other…
This last week, we were set to learn about the role of Kings/Queens as a part of our KONOS unit on Obedience. One of the things that I wanted to specifically address was the coronation process. But each time I pulled out one of the Usborne books we had on kings to point out the page on coronations, their eyes just glazed over. They would proceed to ply me with related favorites of theirs, like The Kitchen Knight: A Tale of King Arthur.
As Friday approached, I realized that we were either going to skip the coronation process or continue to fall behind… So I mixed things up – and announced from the get go that we were going to have a coronation that day.
So sometimes good books can spark curiosity about a subject and other times our kids might need some kind of fun activity to spark interest in pursuing the information provided in the books!
Teaching is an exciting, but sometimes baffling experience. It is always helpful to have a reminder that when something isn’t working, try changing things up a bit.
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