Learning Unlimited: Using Homework to Engage Your Child's Natural Style of Intelligence (Parenting School-Age Children, Learning Tools, Kids Learning) - Softcover

Markova, Dawna; Powell, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573241164 ISBN 13: 9781573241168

Publisher: Conari Press, 1998

Synopsis

Create a Natural Learning Environment for Your Child

From the team that forever changed our view of how children learn, in their book How Your Child is Smart, comes a fundamental and intuitive prescription for natural learning right at home.

Natural learning starts at home. Anyone who spends time with young children recognizes their natural intelligence and resilient passion to learn. But as they try to meet the pressures and expectations of school, natural learning diminishes. Does it have to be that way? According to teachers Dawna Markova and Anne R. Powell, absolutely not. Whether a parent or educator, Learning Unlimited helps transform the homework hassle from a nightly struggle to an engaged learning initiative that uncovers the unique gifts of your child’s mind.

Learning from your child’s natural motivation. Filled with practical advice and compassionate support, this book is designed to honor your child’s innate intelligence with family engaged learning strategies. In Learning Unlimited, veteran teachers unveil how learning from homework can also function as a joint inquiry into your child’s special gifts. Designed for optimal parental involvement in education, this guide helps parents give children a competitive advantage by cultivating a life-long love of learning.

If you’re ready to take a step towards family engaged learning and have read The Gift of Failure, The Well-Trained Mind, or The Self-Driven Child, then you’ll love Learning Unlimited.

About this title

About the Authors

Dr. Dawna Markova is an author, teacher, psychotherapist, researcher, executive advisor, and organizational fairy godmother. She is one of the creators of the best-selling Random Acts of Kindness series, and has authored books like Reconcilable Differences: Connecting In a Disconnected World, Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking With People Who Think Differently, and A Spot of Grace: Remarkable Stories Of How You DO Make a Difference. Dr. Markova is also the co-author of How Your Child is Smart.

She is the co-founder and CEO Emeritus of Professional Thinking Partners, a network of consultants internationally known for talent development and deployment, and a former Senior Affiliate of the Organizational Learning Center at MIT. Dr. Markova is also a frequent keynote speaker.

Anne R. Powell has been in the field of education since 1974. A classroom teacher and learning specialist, she also conducts nationwide teacher trainings and presentation for parent groups. She is the co-author of How Your Child is Smart.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Learning Unlimited

Using Homework to Engage Your Child's Natural Style of Intelligence

By Dawna Markova, Anne R. Powell

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 1998 Dawna Markova and Anne R. Powell
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-116-8

Contents

Foreword by Parker J. Palmer
Chapter 1 Engaging Your Child's Passion to Learn—Naturally
Chapter 2 Sponsoring Your Child: Becoming a Learning Partner
Chapter 3 Tapping in to Natural Motivation: Remembering What They Love
Chapter 4 Getting Organized: Keeping Track in New Ways
Chapter 5 Managing Time and Energy: Putting Homework in Its Place
Chapter 6 Getting Started: Engaging Mind, Body, and Spirit
Chapter 7 Understanding Concentration, Confusion, and Distraction: 
Managing Movements of the Mind
Chapter 8 Enhancing Learning Conditions: Personalizing the Study Space
Chapter 9 Getting Stuck and Unstuck: Expanding Mental Resources
Chapter 10 Calling It a Night: Learning As Its Own Reward
Chapter 11 Sharing What You've Learned: Becoming a Learning Resource
Chapter 12 The Greatest Gift of All: An Attentive Heart
Index
Resources
About the Authors

CHAPTER 1

Engaging Your Child's Passion to Learn—Naturally

Is there anyone who has spent time with very young children and not been in aweof the natural intelligence and resilient passion to learn that they bring intothe world? Is there anyone who has not delighted in coaching those children totake a first step? Is there anyone who has not agonized while trying to helpthem with their homework? Almost every one of you, like me, has witnessed thedelight of discovery diminish and stiffen as those children march through therigors of school and "growing up." Does it have to be that way?

* * *

September 1962. 8 A.M. Janey Rothchild was the first one to burst into theclassroom when the bell rang. She was clutching a large dead frog close to herchest. Tony Esposito was right behind her. His hands were full of dry mapleleaves and an empty turtle shell. Samantha and Jessmyn's arms were entwined,their grubby hands grasping a lifeless snake, a broken tree branch, and severallarge gray rocks. Within minutes, twenty-five disheveled six- and seven-year-oldswere crouched on the polished pine floor, their forest treasures carefullyplaced in the center. "How do you know these things are dead? How can you tell?"I asked.

Janey traced the bumpy back of the stiff frog she had found. "I can tell," shesaid. One tear traced a white track down her dirt-smeared cheek. "It doesn'thave its light anymore. That was its soul and it went on a sunstick elevator upto the sky. Just like my little brother's."

All of us knew Janey's little brother had died the week before. When shereturned to school after the funeral, she brought with her the questions shewasn't supposed to ask anyone. "What does it mean when something is dead? Whydoes it get cold? Where does its mind go? Can it still love you?"

Those questions were what prompted my homework assignment. I had asked eachchild to bring in something dead from the natural world. For two hours, the kidspoked and probed into the mystery of death. One after another told stories:"When my parakeet died, it got all hard like this snake." "When my grandpa wasin the box in church, I touched him and he was all cold so I know he didn't goto Hell, because that's the hot place." "Yeah, but maybe love is hot and so whensomething dies, the love goes out of it into the people that cared about it.That's why they get all hot when they cry."

When the principal came in at lunchtime, he asked me what the mess was in themiddle of the floor, and demanded my lesson plans for that day. Three-and-a-halfdecades later, I can't remember how I justified what we had been doing in termsof the semester's curriculum. I don't even remember if any of us figured outanswers to Janey's questions. I do remember getting a letter from her though,ten years ago. She had become a first-grade teacher. She wrote to tell me shestill remembered that day. It was when she discovered she would always love tolearn.

* * *

September 1996, midnight. Still teaching, but now I work with adults inbusinesses that are striving to become learning organizations. On thisparticular evening, I was trying to play pool with seven guys from the seminar.(They were the ones who had sat for three days with their arms folded acrosstheir chests no matter what I said or did.) When my first shot resulted in thewhite ball careening off the table into the soda machine, it was pretty obviousI was there for some reason other than the game. The guys patiently did theirbest to teach me, but I finally told them the truth. I was there to learnsomething, but it wasn't pool. "What I really want to know is why everyone callsyou the 'Clay Layer,' and why you don't seem to want to be at this seminar."

Clovis took the cue stick out of my hands. Maybe it made him feel safer. Hisvoice was scratchy as if his words passed over sandpaper before leaving hislips. "Listen, Dawna, we know the company hired you to promote this new visionthing about becoming a learning organization. We know you're just doing yourjob." He paused and took a long swig of beer. The others snickered behind him."You gotta understand so you don't take it personally. They call us the 'ClayLayer' because no matter how much money they spend on their vision statement,and no matter how far down the company it trickles, it stops with us." Clovis'hand pointed emphatically toward the center of my chest, as if it were the cuestick and I was the eight ball headed for the pocket.

"They can tell us we gotta be at this seminar. We'll come. We're real good at'GTTM'—Going Through the Motions. But no matter what they do, they can't make uslearn."

I backed myself into an invisible corner of silence, trying to comprehend whatit would feel like to be so adamant, so bent on refusing to learn—when learningwas what I loved as passionately as life itself. Finally I replied, "OK, guys, Iagree with you. No one can or should try to make you learn. Certainly not me.But help me understand why it's so important for you not to."

Jimmy stepped up next to Clovis and put his hand on his shoulder. I had beenwatching him earlier, during the breaks in the seminar, quietly moving wordsaround on the magnetic poetry board we had set up at the back of the conferenceroom. "We know they think we're stupid, Dawna. We know they think we've got whatone manager calls a 'victim mentality.' They say we're not taking responsibilityfor making things change around here, like kids who whine about hating homework,just so they don't have to do it. They tell us lots of stuff like that. Butthere's two things no one ever does and until they do, it's GTTM and they can'tmake us learn."

Jimmy was a master. He knew exactly how long to wait smugly in silence until Ihad to ask, "OK, OK, tell me. What are the two things?" He lowered his voiceuntil it was barely above a whisper, and each word was spoken separately, withgreat care. "One—they've got to ask us what we know already. Two—they've got tolisten to what we tell them about what's wrong, without explaining it away asvictim mentality. When they do that, maybe it will be safe enough for us tolearn."

* * *

Let me be explicit. I love to learn. It has always been my handhold in thedarkness. I wouldn't be offended if you called me a learning junkie. Nothing isas compelling to me as the light that is emitted from a person when learning isoccurring. For fifty-five years, I've followed that glow from playgrounds tocorporate boardrooms. I've pursued it through graduate degrees in psychology andeducation, through the professions of classroom teacher, psychotherapist,trainer of trainers, educational consultant, corporate consultant. It doesn'tmatter what labels were attached to it—what has always drawn me forward is mydesire to be around that radiance, to foster it, to encourage it, and to studythe conditions that generate and direct it.

For me, learning has always been so much more than a transfer of information. Ithas meant wholeness, empowerment, actualization, liberation. Children like Janeyremind me that there is a seeker of excellence built into our DNA. Childrenembody this inherent impulse in their rampant curiosity about themselves andtheir world, the way they naturally follow their interests and rhythms, seek outand risk experimentation, honor their dreams and daydreams, consider mistakes asinformation rather than as something wrong. Children have taught me thatlearning is discovering that something is possible.

A teacher of mine, Parker Palmer, asks, "Why is it that in this country with themost widespread educational system on the globe, so many people walk aroundfeeling stupid?" It hurts me on a cellular level when I think about that. I achewhen I remember seeing shining five-year-olds who thought in images or wereclever with their hands or danced and sang and told brilliant stories; six yearslater they had become hungry ghosts or haunted pariahs because they didn't catchon to reading or multiplication. I grieve when I think of eight-year-old Simon;when his teacher asked him to give the definition of infinity, he responded, "ACream of Wheat Box!" and was sent to the principal's office for being a smartaleck. Later, when I asked him what he meant, he said, "Well, there's a guy onthe box holding a Cream of Wheat box. And on that box there's a guy holding aCream of Wheat box, and...."

I mourn when I think of adults like Jimmy and Clovis caught in a battle forcontrol of their spirit, whose only ultimate power is refusal. I feel despairwhen I hear someone say how children or adults are unmotivated, resistant tolearning. They may be resistant to being taught, but not to learning. No one whois sane and alive resists learning.

What interferes with this natural impulse? What causes the lights to dim? Whathinders our children's innate passion? Why do kids complain that they're bored,that they can't do it, that they don't know how to do it, that they don't needto know it ? Why is it that Griffin charges in the door, kisses the air, andyells at his mother, "Don't bother me now, I've got to go to soccer practice.The coach says I need to work on kicking with my left foot," but when it's timefor him to write a report on the Lewis and Clark expedition, he stubbornlycollapses on the couch?

Does it have to be that way? Why do we change from coaches to cops? Even moreimportantly, how do we transform the forces that limit the expression of ourchildren's natural intelligence? What can we as parents, teachers, and concernedadults do to foster the love of learning that is every child's birthright?

When I live inside these questions, my first response is to shrug with a senseof helplessness. That shrug has followed me from classroom to classroom, yearafter year, as I taught at every level from first grade through graduate school.I wanted to foster the unique brilliance of each child, and instead I watched itturn dull by the very process that was supposed to enhance it. I was interestedin the art of learning and encouraging ingenuity, and I was supposed to betraining children to be obedient workers, to maintain the status quo. I taughtin order to eradicate ignorance, but found myself instead in a massive battlewith fear—the fear of being different, the fear of vulnerability, the fear ofthe unknown. I thought I was there to help children learn, but found that I wassupposed to be part of an "expertocracy" whose main responsibilities were toimpart information and keep accurate records.

In my frustration and pain, I searched for someone to blame. It was the otherteachers' fault. It was the administrators' fault. It was the parents, theschool board members, the public at large, the culture. But everywhere I turned,I found victims of the same misunderstandings about what a person is, whatlearning and intelligence are, what education itself is and can be. Everywherein schools people spoke of the Golden Rule but practiced the Silver Rule—theydid unto others as was done unto them. After fifteen years, I felt as if I weretrying to teach children to breathe deeply in an oven with the gas turned on. Ishrugged one final time and left the classroom forever.

But the questions would not leave me. They lurked in the shadows of everysession I had with families and individuals as a psychotherapist in privatepractice. They pursued me into the adult world of organizations—-businesses,health care, social service agencies, teacher-training programs—places where Ithought I could make a difference. They followed me to the OrganizationalLearning Center of the Sloan School at MIT and the Visions of a Better WorldFoundation. Everywhere I went, I found others who were also plagued by thesesame questions and shrugging under the weight of the same feelings.

Fourteen years ago, a short woman with flashing black eyes and a huge spiritsurged into a program on holistic education that I was facilitating in Boston.Anne Powell had been a classroom teacher for a decade, but had not lost hercommitment to find as many ways as possible to respond to the unique needs andabilities of the children she worked with. When I began sharing what myexperience and research had taught me about the multiple intelligences ofchildren, and multisensory ways of creating learning experiences for them, theembers in her eyes ignited. I knew I had found a partner who was dedicated toexploring those questions in the classrooms I had left behind. In our comingtogether, the organizational world and the educational world found commonground. As parents, we both knew it would take the entire community to helpraise our children.

When Anne and I coauthored our first book, How Your Child IS Smart, we felt agreat deal of passion about helping to create the conditions where the fullrange of natural intelligence can flourish, where all who are different canbelong, where instead of trying to force our children to be unique in the sameway as everybody else, uniqueness can be the norm. We knew we were not alone inthis commitment, but even we were surprised at the positive response the bookreceived from parents, teachers, and children themselves. We received lettersand phone calls, faxes and e-mail from around the world supporting much morethan the model of six patterns of learning we had presented. What we werehearing was an overwhelming shift in perspective from judgment: "What's wrongwith my kid and how can I fix him or her?" to engagement: "No matter what anyonesays, I want to help my child keep his love of learning," and "I want to dosomething more than be a homework cop for my kid. Where do I start?"

Sponsoring Learning Unlimited

This book was born from the encouragement that our readers' responses fostered.It is a direct result of the overwhelming request for a means of exploring how aconcerned parent can engage the natural intelligence of his or her children andfoster their passion to learn. We knew we wanted to help parents help theirchildren develop lifelong skills specifically tailored to their unique style andneeds. And we knew teachers felt understandably overwhelmed by the changes inthinking and classroom management required to meet the needs of many differentkinds of learners. Because they could not possibly cater to the special gifts ofevery child, we saw a new responsibility emerging for parents and othercaregivers—sponsorship. This entails nurturing the gift in each child, as onenurtures the oak tree to grow from an acorn. We knew this was possible if wecould help parents find a practice field to instill self-trust, concentration,determination, and awareness.

We decided that homework would be that field of practice because it is the partof the schooling process where parents have the most contact with theirchildren's daily learning experience, and so it is the place where they can makethe most difference in helping their kids learn how they learn. We knew wewanted the results of the book to be very specific: for children to have somegrounded and necessary information so they could help themselves when they werestuck or confused or needed to organize their thoughts; for children to gain theconfidence necessary to experiment and explore independently; for children todevelop the internal discipline that would help them reach for what they reallywanted and bring it into being.

We also knew the book would not be about how to make children do homework, butrather about the real work of home—protecting and fostering the child and thegift that child brings to the rest of the human community. We asked ourselves apivotal question, "What could help transform the homework experience into apartnership between parents and children to discover just how valuable they bothreally are?"

You are holding the result of all of those questions and aspirations in yourhands. Welcome to what is unabashedly a "how-to" book. But it is not about howto parent the "right" way, or how to make your child do his or her homework the"right" way. It is a book about how to have conversations of discovery with yourchildren that will reveal their capacities, gifts, and natural style ofintelligence. Homework can be transformed from a tedious burden and an arena ofstruggle that tears you apart into a worthwhile adventure and exploration overtime that brings you closer to yourselves and to each other.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Learning Unlimited by Dawna Markova, Anne R. Powell. Copyright © 1998 Dawna Markova and Anne R. Powell. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Conari Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1573241164
• ISBN 13: 9781573241168
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 204