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Article #361: The Natural Path to Learning for Your Child - An Introduction

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My wife, Bobbie, and I have been teachers we support and guide.
all of our adult lives. We have spent The Ultimate Goal is for each of our
many years in both public and private children to become an independent
institutions and, having survived a few learner. This is kind of scary for some
years, we have seen almost every teaching of us parents but it is the necessary
innovation and/or gimmick the world has goal. We are to give our kids Roots and
experienced. Bobbie is an accomplished Wings -- and eventually, the Wings must
musician and music teacher in elementary take over.
grades and college. I have taught in the The Natural Path to Learning is based on
fields of reading, spelling, math, and the idea that each of us learns in our
history at the elementary, junior/senior own unique way, at our own special pace.
high and college levels. We have both One Size Does Not Fit All Children. Many
done a lot of work with learning theory school and home school programs are set
-- on how people learn. out in a sequential, rigid pattern and
We have gathered together all of the the child must learn in that pattern and
ideas that we believe can be called at the rate required to be on grade level
Natural -- as opposed to Artificial. For or to not "get behind." NPL requires that
example, it is Natural for a parent to the program be fitted to the child not
take Andy for a walk in the stroller and the child fitted to the program. Our
while walking and talking, the parent can child will be learning the skills and
say, "Look at the beautiful flowers. information at his own pace and in his
These red flowers smell nice, don't they? own best learning pattern.
These blue flowers are pretty, too, and Your child, and not the program, is at
they are bigger than the red flowers." In the center of the learning process.
context and in a natural, real way, the Fortunately, and very happily, we have
child has learned about 'flowers,' 'red,' real experiences to share with you. Two
'blue,' 'big.' This has given the child a years ago we were presented a gift in the
meaningful experience for the words and form of our great grandson, Reese. We,
concepts. Later, we'll go shopping and again fortunately, live in the same city
say, "Andy, shall we buy some of these as Reese and his Mom and Dad so we get to
green apples or those red ones." spend a lot of time with him. We will be
Contrast this with the more often sharing with you many of the living,
techniques used in "teaching the Kids learning experiences we enjoy in our
their colors." Out comes the blocks or relationship with Reese. In the meantime,
color strips or worksheets and the kids we will be submitting articles taken from
are supposed to differentiate among the our book, The Natural Path to Learning.
colors. This is Artificial or at least By the way, we will be using a lot of
Contrived -- It is not Real Experience. critical thinking and creativity
Learning, rather than Teaching, is the experiences which sadly have been
process. Learning is as natural as disappearing from our school lessons --
breathing. We learn from the environment it is almost impossible to write
around us and from the people who exist achievement test items that include this
with us. We can't keep our kids from kind of right brain activity. So, if you
learning. So what are we as parents to do want to raise your test scores stay with
with our kids? We take advantage of all that left brain only memorization and
of those real life learning opportunities fact recall. However, if you want to
and channel them into the things we call broaden and deepen the learning, let's
reading, writing, arithmetic, science, get to the right brain stuff, too.
history, and whatever else exists -- from We'll have more commentary on testing in
birth (and before). The child learns and future articles.






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