Random observations and comments about integrated learning

Integrated learning (?) for lack of a better term...

It's interesting how we feel the need to divide and conquor everything in our quest to understand and make sense of life. Some of us are more guilty of this than others :-)

It's probably a good thing that educators "discovered" that there are lots of ways that people learn and that all of our senses are important to learning and we can combine subjects, reinforce the learning and make it more interesting and time efficient. It probably wasn't that we didn't know these things, but more that the educational system wasn't implementing the obvious information (though let it be said that good teachers have been doing it all along). Some might argue that there isn't time to cover all the facts you have to learn to ace whatever test the system gives you if you try to learn everything by discovery. And of course the system is set up for paper and pencil evaluations partly to evaluate the teaching and partly to evaluate the learning. . . It's all very deliberate.

But sharpening all of our senses and understandings are important to successful living. True? Do you learn more when you sit still and listen to someone else talk for some prolonged period of time? Is it an important skill to learn? If you're not in college (or a child with an angry parent) how often do you spend 45 minutes listening to someone lecture you?

A historic observation (not based on endless research by the way) is that people learned the skills they needed to survive or they didn't survive. We live in a time and culture where there are so many options! And in most cases, there isn't an immediate life or death consequence to the choices we make.

I personally prefer hands- on learning but I also need a mental challenge. I enjoy learning what I need to know to do something. I learn it better if I do it over and over but if it's redundant I get bored. I don't mind tests if the results are good or if it doesn't put me in a box. I do mind if I do poorly or if the evaluation puts me in a box. The feedback is good either way if it comes with an option for improvement. I like creating and creative problem-solving. I like discussions if everyone can contribute. I like discovering new things and finding out more. I like cultural, social, and historic factors. I like independant study. I like being outside. Numbers, I avoid but there are people who handle numbers and physics or linquistics and other things .... with the same enthusiasm. Somehow, I think there's a place for all these things and more in God's learning module. I think there's a place for individual, family, and community differences in God's learning module.

A few years back I was excited to use a "Sunday School" curricula that integrated learning activities from science, math, history, geography, language arts, food and culture etc, etc. I enjoyed the huge sections of resources with recipes for food and art materials and music and craft ideas. You could pick and chose what you wanted to use for whatever lesson you were doing. I liked the focus on story (stories from scripture and opportunities for kids to share their own stories and listen to the stories of people around them.) It was set up in a three year cycle to go with the liturgy (if you were using a liturgy). You could reproduce pages. You could recycle and reuse the material so you didn't have to buy new materials every year. I liked the fact that it was rich - it was more than a couple of songs with a punch out and color curricula punctuated with memorization.

I was disappointed to find there were theological discrepancies that made this program less than desirable for a lot of people but I also thought this was pretty easy to work around especially with 3 & 4 year olds. I liked the family/multi-generational activity Sundays. Families were often making something that their family could give away. I liked the fact that they carried the theme into worship even though the teens hated hearing the same thing over and over. There are enough levels and facets of scripture that it wouldn't have to be like that. No one could possibly use all of it all of the time but it was a wonderful resource to pick and chose activities that would give a particular group of kids varied and interesting ways to interact with the scriptures or with an idea.

As a phy ed major 30 years ago we learned about the Guided Discovery approach to learning and Movement Ed. When I taught preschool gym it worked so well! All the kids were moving most of the time, not sitting in lines waiting their turn. All the kids were mentally engaged, trying to find a way to move that solved a problem. They could move in a way that grew their confidence and skills and it was fun for them. They learned respect for personal space and they learned to work together. They could use numbers and other skills in the gym. They grew confidence, locomotor, axial, and social skills that would provide a great foundation for team sports or anything else they would do later. You didn't have to invest in a lot of expensive equipment. Lots of advantages! Nine months later, they were doing things they couldn't do at the beginning of the year. Some of them would have learned those things anyway. Some of them would never have pushed themselves without being challenged. Fruit of our training: teens and adults are probably too self-conscious for that approach in a gym class... to see how many ways they can move with their foot higher than their head... .

My point? Whether we're learning about God or all that He's created, the peoples, the cultures, (the things we've successfully categorized) to really savor the richness you have to keep going after it- life-long learning but not neccarily in a classroom. Kids have their own personalities and interests even when they're little but they're still curious and observant and frank and all the world is new. We each have things to share and kids have things to teach us. For all my scriptural word studies about children and learning and teaching I'm only now beginning to notice that kids were just a natural part of the community and context of the Old and New Testaments. And I'm only now noticing all the times that Jesus said some variation of "look at the children," " notice this," "look," "see," "understand..."

just random comments and observations...

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand