I wrote this article many years ago. My son Laurence was a year old at the time.
School is out and many of us are seeing a lot more of our children. Hopefully, we will take this opportunity to notice how they have grown in magical ways.
About a year ago my wife and I had a healthy baby boy and I have been observing him with fascination ever since. This first year, he matured from a completely dependent infant into a whirling machine of destruction.
It is not just the speed of his learning that thrills me, but his dedication and excitement. There is nothing we have to coax him to learn. We did not have to bribe him with cookies, say "good boy" or "bad boy," or promise him the latest toy advertised on TV. He learned to hold his own bottle, crawl, and eventually walk, just because he wanted to.
Sometimes when I see Laurence practicing something he could not do before, he breaks into the biggest smile.
Where did we lose this excitement for learning?
We probably lost it somewhere between the race for grades, lack of relevance of most of our education, fear and punishment for making a mistake, and the lack of opportunity to practice and fine-tune our skills at our own time and on our own terms.
How can we get it back?
We can help preserve the sense of wonder and excitement that we all once had toward learning new things by:
- Providing a positive and supportive learning environment
- Making sure that the behaviors taught and the examples used are relevant
- Creating nonthreatening individual or group competition
- Providing participants with many opportunities to practice without fear of making a mistake or being wrong
I have found that these strategies work well with most people.
I hope that Laurence never loses this magical sense of wonder, called learning.
Epilogue
Laurence recently graduated college. Thankfully his love of learning may have been tarnished, but not destroyed.
So what do “you” think?
I would enjoy hearing from you. Please contact me using the “Contact Us” tab on my website http://www.fttraining.com/
