Lernen

Damit habe ich mich in den letzten Tagen stark beschäftigt und ich habe unter anderem gelernt, dass „Framing“ einen unglaublichen Einfluss auf die Antwort hat.

Erzählen wir uns die Geschichte emotional oder schaffen wir es den Fall rational und neutral zu betrachten? Dies ist aber ein Thema für einen anderen Beitrag.

Hier ist das unglaublich schwer doch ich habe es tatsächlich geschafft, bei meiner Aufgabe (es ging um die Erarbeitung einer Entscheidung zu diesem Thema) rational zu bleiben.

Der genaue Anlass ist hier nicht wichtig aber mein Text führte zu Rückfragen. Eben wie Schule unseren Kindern schaden könne. Völlig ohne Vorwurf übrigens, die Frage wurde mir aus aufrichtiger Neugier gestellt.

Auf die Rückfrage habe ich geantwortet und meine Antwort möchte ich gern aufbewahren. Ich denke, dass ich das ganz gut zusammengefasst habe (wenn auch dieses Mal emotional), deshalb poste ich sie hier.

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Hi …
thanks for your reply.
Of course I could give you some examples from our life as this is the only thing I can talk about and decide on. Every family and every child is different. That is also why I wouldn’t allow myself proposing on behalf of others. I’m not against school in general, I only would appreciate the possibility to choose without facing legal consequences.

For us it looks like this:
Our two girls are 2 and 9, our boys are 7 and 8. So we have 3 kids at school-age right now.
As you have seen in the table I respect the outcome, school has on social connections. But in the end, they have plenty of contact outside of school too. They have each other, there are other children in our street, they play with, the boys are in the football-club and in the youth fire-brigade. Our 9-year-old attends music-school and kids-yoga-classes and our youngest also meets same-age-friends (before social-distancing in GER). They also have there grandparents and other relatives nearby. Thats why I’m sure social contact and experience are no problem in our case.

The learning outcomes:
This is kind of a question of belief. We belief, the children’s learning performance is best, when they can follow their interests. They have no chance to do that at school. They have 45min maths, 45min history, 45min biology, 45min german, 45min … We belief this is not how learning works (and we are not alone in this belief, it is quiet common sense, only the public school system keeps it this way).

All of our kids read before they entered school (not Goethe of course but small text-pieces in children’s books) and they also were able to sum up within 1-10. They enjoyed it.

They learned it by themselves during our camping holidays with Tip-Toi-books and with our support. We have read to them loud every evening from their fist weeks of life. It was our ritual. They wanted to learn it and they were so proud. After the first month at school it was gone. No interest in reading anymore.

They also wrote us letters. Not correct of course but it was play for them. They invited us to stage performances, they arranged on their own (circus, including costumes, text, choreography and stage-building). This was also play for them. And in these 1-2 summer-weeks they learned more than in their whole first school year.

Right now my daughter learns sewing. And my youngest son (as simple as that) strongly improves his reading with Super Mario Video Games. It’s a lot of text in there and if he wants to understand he’d better learn.

We encourage that. We take them with us to museums, show them stuff at the computer (eg. Video- and Photo editing), we renovated their Play-House and build their sandbox together where math, art and handicraft is involved (so many possibilities).

If they find a thing of interest, they dive into it deeply. They do nothing else for weeks (we watched that in summer). 45 min this topic and then 45min that topic (like in school) is unnatural.

A long way but this is how we think we can strengthen their self-esteem and their want to live self-determinate. It also leads to their full potential. They try what they love.

At school my son is forced to transcribe a fictional letter from the school-book to improve his hand writing. And he has to sit still for that.

He hates it.

He is 8 years old and wants to run out and play football the whole day. Time will come when he is interested in fine motor skills. Lots of men are surgeons or painters but not at 8. He is full of power now and it has to get out. He could never ever sit still. But he is evaluated for that. He is told that he is not right. And that is what harms their psychological health. Drip by drip for 13 years.

My story is different from yours. I hated school when I was there and I have no (or only little) good memory of that. Maybe I’m biased but it breaks my heart to see my kids suffering a similar way.
Not to get me wrong, our kids do quiet well so far. They are among the best pear group in their classes, well integrated and respected. But even though we see tendencies, that the obedience-trap will catch them.

This was my emotional framing again. And as mentioned before, please don’t take that as a general advice. It’s only our individual story.

Thanks again for your interest.

See you soon
Robert