I have studied a little bit of Learning Theory and the following things have stood out to me as probably the most important concepts of current broad thinking on learning.
1. All people learn best when they are motivated to learn. There are two types of motivation: extrinsic (where the motivation comes from outside the person - rewards, grades, praise are examples of extrinsic motivators) and intrinsic motivation (where the pleasure of learning, or interest in the subject material acts as the motivator)
2. There are many different learning preferences (in fact they may be as unique as the individuals learning themselves. Under this uniqueness umbrella fall learning styles and multiple intelligences (Gardner), brain hempisphere predominance, sensory preferences, circadian rhythm differences, personality and temperamental differences and more.
3. People learn different things at different paces - there is no standard learning or developmental time-table (despite our great tendency to compare kids with each other)
4. A person will not learn effectively (i.e. retain what one has learnt and use it practically) unless what they are learning has meaning for them, or they can make meaning from it.
In addition there are the following factors to consider: (much garnered from this book)
1. There is now so much information out there that no-one can know even a tiny bit of everything - the very nature of knowledge in the information age means that people have to become specialists rather than generalists.
2. The nature of work is changing at such a rapid place that skills/knowledge becomes rapidly obsolete. In addition knowledge and information are readily available to whomever want to go looking for it. There is no need anymore for memorisation of arbitrary facts. Much more important is the development of learning skills such as critical and analytical thinking, research skills, creativity and skills to do with harnessing the knowledge held by other specialists: collaboration, networking, an ability to work with people.
3. Linked to the last item, it appears that kids who have good self-awareness and confidence, who have good inter-personal skills, and intrapersonal awareness and acceptance, go on to become successful and happy adults. In addition it appears that the most important place where children develop these skills is within healthy relationships (and in particular warm and accepting family relationships).
It has become increasing obvious to us that most of the existing methods of educating children (despite the often heroic efforts of teachers and parents) work against what I have discussed above. Ken Robinson discusses this much better than I can in this video (from RSA Animate):
And so we first made the transition to home-schooling and, as we have gone on, our approach has become more and more like that known as "unschooling", "life learning", "free-schooling". The decision to move towards this approach was not taken lightly. I have spent literally the last year praying, reading articles, books and blogs, experimenting and observing, talking to my kids and other people's kids. It has been much more of a difficult transition for me, because I have been schooled into the idea that learning HAS to be linear, structured, imposed and if that does not happen the children will not want to learn. The last year has slowly persuaded me otherwise. Sometimes it's difficult to see what the kids are learning, or if they are learning at all - that makes it difficult and plays into some of my insecurities. But I am learning how to converse with my kids, to watch carefully what they do, how they do it,and how they interact as they do it. I am very pleased with the way each of them is growing, developing and relating so far.
For more info on our approach, here are a few links to look at:
1 What is unschooling? - Earl Stevens
2. The Hall of Mirrors - Article by John Taylor Gatto
3. rnPeter Grays Blog on learning at Psychology Today
4. A Blog on Unschooling in Christian Families
5. Another Christian Unschooling Website
6. Pat Farenga describes Unschooling
7. Sudbury Valley School: An "Unschool"
8. Grown unschoolers speak
9. A great article from the Las Vegas Weekly
