About Natural Learning



He called to me to come listen. The child that I had labelled a "concrete sequential" when he was little, now a beautiful, tall, lean, muscular, young man (a proud mother can never use too many adjectives), was bent over the guitar he had bought himself. We had no idea he had this dormant interest, this creative ability within him. He was playing (effortlessly it seemed) a difficult bass riff, one he had been practising mercilessly for days on end between writing essays, playing Minecraft, duelling with trigonometry, gyming and sleeping. He beamed proudly as he looked up - object achieved his eyes seemed to say. We always knew he was the competitive one, the logical, practical one, but the musical one?

His brothers had started dabbling with music. The one had spent all his savings on a very well used drum set a few years before and also taught himself to play the guitar and piano by ear. The piano that we had bought just in case someone was interested, the one that was hardly used for many years except by their dad fiddling around every once in a while. But then we knew this other son was a Creative Child so it came as no surprise.

Enter Creative Child Number Two, the one we had sent for piano lessons for about 6 months, because he had expressed an interest in learning to play the flute. No teachers for flute in our little town, so I convinced him that piano would be a good grounding as he would learn to read music for a start. He hated it. It was not the flute and he was not interested, so we stopped. Stopped for about 5 years, if not more. And then one day he shifted in front of the piano, the one that just cluttered which ever room it was moved to. And he started fiddling, experimenting, asking for input from his dad every other evening and when his dad could teach him nothing more he found YouTube tutorials. Then he started composing music on his computer, downloading free software and again used online tutorials. It was about then that the bug bit his twin, the Competitive One. The three of them would spend hours browsing the music shop in the city where they went once a week for tutoring (Maths and Science) and then one day he announced that he wanted a Bass Guitar. He spent his savings and we added a bit. And that's when it really started. We held our breaths, but his logic held him in good stead and pure grit (a result of his competitiveness) made him see it through, made him practise difficult riffs for hours until he succeeded.

To Learn (verb): 1. The act, process or experience of gaining knowledge or skill.

Learning is not something that is done to you. The learning that I write about and am interested in, is not teaching (in fact teaching can interfere with learning) and it is not schooling nor training (external behaviour modification). It is something very personal. It is an act or internal process that a learner (child or adult) initiates. As someone once said: "teachers teach, but learners learn" which is something similar to "you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink".

Real learning happens when a person is interested in or inquisitive about something. It happens when they start thinking about this interesting subject, start investigating, start collecting information and start experimenting with this subject. It is totally learner directed and motivated. This type of learning could include guidance from mentors, teachers, tutors or other informed adults, but the learner needs to want the input from the other party, he must be ready "to drink" so to speak.

To learn in this manner, the learner needs the time and freedom to do so. And he needs access to resources to work through and complete this learning process. The learning needs to be facilitated, but not steered, managed or controlled by an external party (which could also be a curriculum). Sadly, for many people this only becomes possible after school when their time finally becomes their own. When they have achieved a degree of independence. Independence financially, but more importantly the right and freedom to do what they want to do and object to interference.


So, today we have three sons that all play more than one musical instrument because they want to. We never coerced, we never forced, we never threatened. We never made them feel guilty for not using the instruments that were lying and standing about. They choose to learn to play what they play, because they wanted to. They found the resources (financially and otherwise) and put themselves through the rigorous practise required to achieve the proficiency they desired (which further built their character). This is what I call self-directed or inward-driven learning. It's a form of real, natural learning that happens when the learner is in charge of his learning. And this is the type of learning I am passionate about.

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful! Our eldest has mostly self taught himself guitar and now has 5 young students he teaches. Love this natural learning when they want to learn something.

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