The Gift of Perception
In this, the first of a series, we will explore how to lead children through the natural learning process.
There are seven elements to this learning process: Perceiving - Connecting - Questioning - Understanding - Receiving - Communicating - Creating
In this series I will explore how the seven learning processes can be tailored to the children in your life. I will offer tools you can use in the classroom or at home. By supporting the kids’ use of each process, you will give the children the space they need to use their own intelligence and skill and you will support them in building their unique perspective and a wider knowledge base.
I explore each one in turn throughout this series, however it is important to note that each of these elements are present at all times throughout our day.
Let’s begin with perception: the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through our senses. This is how we beginn to understand or interpret our world. The more time we spend perceiving a subject, the deeper the understanding.
Children are masters at paying attention. They really are. Their senses are infinitely more open than those of adults, who’ve had decades of practise blocking out the overwhelm.
However, we use their skills too little these days. Instead we hand knowledge to our children, heaped like a buffet upon a silver plate - but without the necessary journey that accompanied those who discovered the knowledge in the first place. Definitions that took decades, millenia even, to develop are now a quick Google search away.
“Children are masters at paying attention. They really are. ”
Parents and teachers do not plan time to challenge the student to gain access to knowledge the way our forebearers did because they, too, are out of practice. And yet, rediscovering that which is already defined while gaining skills in perception along the way is often key.
Luckily the game of perception is not altogether lost. Take Hide and Seek, for example. This game of search offers the player a reason to consider their environment in a more detailed way than usual, seeking those who have concealed themselves, and examining places where concealment might be an option. Even those hiding must put into practise their own sense of perception in order to choose the perfect cache.
Back in the classroom, you can use that same game to engage your students senses.
Treasure hunt
I propose a game. Take all the answers to all the questions on a given day of lesson plans, write each answer on the back of a red piece of paper and hide them around the classroom or the yard. Make sure you know how many there are, and give the kids a time limit to find them all.
Once found, part two begins by finding all the questions, written on green cards and also hidden throughout the school.
When all cards have been located, instruct the class to match all the answers to all the questions.
2.Pictionary
Choose a tree or a building in your area that is close enough to walk to. Arrange the class so each child has a front row seat, that is to say no one is allowed to stand behind anyone else. The class is asked to view the tree in silence for 15 minutes, observing as many details as they can and commit them to memory. Then return to the classroom and draw the tree with as many details as they can remember. Repeat this exercise daily over a period of one month, each day memorising the tree or building in silence and starting a new sketch each day. Over time students will be able to observe their improvement. More importantly, their perception skills will have automatically advanced without them noticing. They will be so focused on their improvements they made in their artwork, the primary advancement will go virtually unnoticed.
But this is where it gets good.
Having improved neurologically, you are now able to support that new skill level by creating weekly challenges in the classroom. For example, changing one thing in the classroom for them to discover by secret ballot, revealing on Fridays what was shifted.
These activities can and will awaken the awareness kids need in order to unpack areas of research, create pockets of interest in the hidden details of a subject and feel the enthusiasm that comes with discovery.