Teach Children to Love Learning
/ Blog
A teachers role is to nurture the childrens love for learning and expand on it.
Their curious and intuitive minds find ways to investigate the what, where, how and why’s of objects, people or their environment without even being able to explain it.
Isn't the human brain just amazing?!
Children ultimately want to learn more about the world. They might not think they are learning at the time, but from an early age children are exploring themselves and their surroundings by taking in small observations and turning it into a learning experience.
But you might be thinking… if children already love to learn, then why do teachers need to teach children to love learning?
Children might love to learn, but like we said earlier, they don’t always know that they are learning or they don’t think to themselves, ‘I am learning’, instead they are probably just thinking they are doing something they find interesting or get enjoyment out of. The teacher’s role is to simply nurture the child’s love for learning and expand on it!
Teaching is a rewarding career and if you ask most teachers why they teach – you might get a similar answer every time.
‘I want to make a difference to a child’s life’
Teaching is not all about lesson plans, and keeping up with the school or teaching standards, instead it is about making a difference. It is about creating a positive environment that reflects on children’s interests, learning styles and culture. It’s about supporting children to try new experiences, taking risks, stepping out of their comfort zones, allowing them to express themselves and their ideas and make their own choices so that they can grow up to be strong, independent thinkers!
School is full of new experiences!
Successful teachers use experiences and the processes of those experiences to get children’s minds thinking outside of the box and getting those awesome ‘light-bulb’ moments! Teaching children to love learning is not always through activities or teaching materials, but through teachers having a responsive attitude and providing constructive play inside and outside the classroom.
Open-ended Questions and Discussions
By asking open-ended questions and starting discussions with children about what they’re doing or what they can see/feel/smell and so on, is engaging children to develop their own thoughts or ideas and expanding on their learning and cognitive thinking. So next time a child asks you, ‘What does this do?’ ask the child ‘What do you think it does?’ rather than giving them the answers to all their questions, get them thinking about it on their own! Who knows what they will come up with, but that’s the fun in it and you are also expanding their love for learning.
Hands-on activities
Children should be encouraged to take on new experiences and opportunities to engage in activities that they enjoy. By creating engaging and interactive activities that allows children to communicate, collaborate and build relationships with other children or teachers in a fun way, will improve a child’s love for learning.
Connection
Building strong relationships is a source of motivation for children as they want to become closer to people they care about. Children want to know people care about them and they want to know they are not alone – so finding someone or a group that the child will feel comfortable with and build that connection with, will make it more enjoyable for them to learn and inspire them to study.
Be Flexible
Children don’t like to be forced to do things, well who does!? Now, we are not saying give children the complete freedom to do whatever they want – but give them freedom or their independence to a certain extent. Offer them choices rather than telling them what they have to do so that they still feel like it’s their decision and not yours. And explain why they are doing it, or what they are going to learn from it or how they will use it in the future. If children understand why they are doing a certain activity, they are more likely going to find it easier and enjoy it more.
Find the fun!
This one is easy! When a task is fun and interesting, getting kids motivated becomes effortless. Every child is different, so every child is going to find interest in different activities, but when they find something they love doing, it will be hard to get them away from it! It is a good idea to turn ‘must-do’ learning activities into fun learning activities, the kids won’t even know but they will be growing their curiosity and expanding their education.
It takes time to understand how every individual child learns and what they are interested in, so teachers (and parents) have a lot of patience. Keep encouraging children and support them to make their own choices and learn new experiences and their love and appreciation for learning with continue to grow!
