Key to the Little Minds ❤️

The other day I had a casual talk with my son, Jayden in a car. The conversation led to what he liked and learned at school, and at one point he said: “My mind holds what’s most interesting to me”. I was stunned by his words.

I could totally relate to this statement when someone’s trying to explain to me about different models of motorcycles. I had no interest in the topic, and I was lost. No matter how exciting the person was talking about it.

As constructivism advocate, I believe that knowledge can only be self-constructed. We learn by connecting new experience to our past experiences.

“Interest” here is a form of existing experience that my son has and ready to connect with new learning. As an educator, how can we grab this interest to be learning opportunities?

Often, we focus on what we want to teach more than what the children want to learn. And no matter how hard we try to “transfer” that knowledge to their little minds, it doesn’t seem to work.

The same thing applies to us parents - we must seek for our children interests and connect them with new learning. Interest is like a key to enter our children’s minds, and once we get in, we get to stay.