Schools as centers of active learning

Simon Marcus Gower, Executive Principal High/Scope, Jakarta

Children of today can often form quite a conundrum. Full of energy and expectations for life they may prove quite a handful but at the same time they can have short attention spans and become easily bored if what they are exposed to is not stimulating. The child of today may have 1001 distractions and attractions to stimulate them and, unfortunately, reduce their powers of concentration.

Caught up in amongst all of this conundrum- and contradictory- like activity are parents and educators. Of course, there is nothing new here; parents and educators have for eons struggled with the challenge of guiding and educating children. But perhaps the challenge of guidance and education is steadily increasing, as our world becomes evermore complex and even perplexing.

However, though the challenge facing parents and educators alike is considerable, our understanding of the problems to be met is also increasing and assisting us. For example, many teachers would be familiar with the experience of having children attending their classes that are sleepy and seem too weary to get things done in the class. But, thanks to research, it is possible for us understand this and perhaps plan classes to accommodate the scientific reality of what is happening.

Researchers in the United States have established that growing children need more sleep than adults. We are probably all familiar with the notion that a good night of sleep should last for about eight hours. Less common knowledge is the fact, determined through research, that a growing child needs around two hours more sleep than a adult does.

Clearly this indicates that in a typical day it is quite likely that a child attending school is going to be sleepy. Melatonin, the hormone that controls sleep, is much more active in a growing child. For children then the motto of "early to bed, early to rise" seems appropriate and even more so in Indonesia.

In the context of attending schools in Indonesia an early start is a pre-requisite, with schools in this country typically starting their day at around 7 a.m.

The child that wants to stay up a little later to watch a little more television or play a little more on a computer is inevitably going to be the sleepy child at school the next day. In such a situation it is clearly incumbent on the parents to set the ground rules for school night activities so that the child has the best possible outlook and application to the next day's activities.

But that word and notion of "activities" is an essential ingredient of a child's school life. Activity in the school is needed to encourage the child to become an active learner. For too long schools have existed on the premise that the children may simply be looked upon as passive attendees. This is an outdated and really rather useless concept for schools and schooling in the twenty-first century.

If children are to enjoy a successful, life forming and life enhancing experience in school it is essential that they be given opportunities to actively learn. This means that children, in becoming students at a school, need to be looked upon as active participants in their own education.

The school, the teachers, the other children within the school and even the child's parents are all partners in this process of education. All can help facilitate the opportunities for active, cooperative and participant based learning to take place.

The teacher's role in this scenario is, then, one that requires that the teacher be close to the children that he or she is responsible for. The teacher cannot be aloof, detached and even dismissive of the children within the classroom. The teacher needs to be the spark that lights the fires of interest within the students' minds. Inevitably, then, this requires that the teacher is able to listen to and understand the hopes and expectations of the students.

The teacher must be able to, as much as is reasonably possible, enter into the mindset of the students to be able to determine what will stimulate them, what will spark their interest and what will set-up the foundations for active learning within the classroom.

This does not require that the teacher becomes the students' best friend or constant companion or baby-sitter. The teacher must still hold the respect and honor of the students but be able to listen well and share in the students' concerns and interests. It would be a mistake, but one easily made, for teachers to feel that they must have the love and affection of their students. It is fine to be a friend but a successful teacher does not always require love from his or her students.

It is most appropriate that a teacher achieves a position of being well liked and respected. Under this kind of condition the teacher is best able to stimulate active learning across the entire classroom of students. Where notions of love and affection have been allowed to seep in, it is quite likely that the teacher will no longer be as fair and democratic, as he or she should be with attention across the room full of people.

The teacher needs to be there for all of the students, encouraging all of them to actively share in the learning process. Favoritism will undermine the chances of shared, cooperative and full participation learning taking place. Like many things in life, it is quite likely that the teacher's role in guiding students towards the best qualities in learning will be one in which if the work is done well, little notice or attention will be paid. But at the same time, if the work is not proving successful, it will come to the attention of complainants. This is a familiar experience across many facets of human endeavor.

Evidently, though, the challenge to teachers is great. This makes it all the more necessary that teachers possess the right mix of creativity and physical and mental activity to accommodate the significant educational challenges to be met. A school needs to be a hive of activity. The needs of the school, then, should be matched with the needs of the teachers. The teachers should also need activity, creativity, flexibility and full commitment to actively learning themselves.