Teaching For Understanding

12/10/2005

An acquaintance of mine was recently telling me how proud she was that her second grade daughter had memorized Martin Luther King’s I Had a Dream speech in school. Memorizing poetry and speeches is great, but you know what would really be impressive is if her daughter had come home and told her mom how she played with a girl in her class who no one else would play with because she was different in some way. Wouldn’t it be awesome if she said, “Mom, you know after learning what Martin Luther King stood for I am determined to help all kids in my class play together even if they are different.” This would be a child who truly understood the message of Dr. King’s speech and who could apply these principles to make the world a better place. Which would you want for your child?

Knowledge Transfer

In current educational practice the focus is shifting from drill and memorization to a focus on students’ understanding and their ability to transfer and apply knowledge. When students only practice rote memory the knowledge is rarely transferable. But when students are taught to truly understand concepts and principles there is a much higher likelihood that their knowledge will be transferred and applied across subjects as well as in the child’s own life.

What does this mean for your child? I am not advocating that your child never memorizes information. Of course every child has to memorize the letters of the alphabet, their multiplication tables, the scientific method, etc. What I am saying is that learning can’t begin and end there. What an awesome opportunity you have as a homeschooling parent to go beyond what is in a textbook or on a worksheet. You are not only teaching your child academics, you are able to encourage her love of learning, as well as molding her character. A classroom teacher would never have the time or even the ability to this to the extent that you can.

Recommendations

What are some ways to insure your child is gaining true understanding? One thing I recommend is to continually take advantage of “teachable moments” even if you are not sitting at the kitchen table as your child is doing his work. For example, if your child is learning about the community, go out into the community and let your child observe community workers in action or let your child participate in a community service project.

My four year old son and I had been talking about patterns in math one day, the next day I went to the store and bought him and his sister some clothes. I pulled an article out of the bag for him, then one for his sister, then one for him… He looked up at me and said, “Mom, why are you making a pattern with the clothes you bought for us?” Wow, I thought. He really does understand what a pattern is and is able to see that it is more than a white circle followed by a black circle followed by a white circle on a worksheet. We began talking about patterns in nature, patterns in fabric, and patterns in books.

Another idea is to talk about how the subjects your child is studying are interrelated. When your child is learning measurement principles, talk about how we use measurement in science to conduct experiments, in math we use measurement to determine area and volume, in geography we use measurement to determine distance, and in music measurement it is used to create melody.

In addition, whenever possible, I recommend explaining to your child why he is learning the skills and information you are teaching, how he will use them in the real world, and how they are used in and apply to different occupations and fields of study. When studying fractions, talk about how you use fractions to cook and how he uses fractions when sharing a cookie with his little sister. Explain that carpenters use fractions to build, engineers and architects use fractions to help them develop their designs, and scientists use fractions to interpret the results of their experiments.

When you encourage your child to go beyond memorization and skill practice and to move into true understanding, she will be better equipped to apply her knowledge in real-life situations. She will also be more motivated to learn because she will have an understanding of why what she is learning is important and how it plays out in the real world.

Today, go read I Have a Dream to your child – just remember she doesn’t have to memorize it to learn from it.