Episode 68: Igniting Curiosity and Nurturing a Love of Learning in Children

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Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microdiscriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I'll be discussing Encouraging a love of learning in your child Can a love of learning be taught? Children have a natural curiosity and eagerness to learn, but do schools quash children's enthusiasm for learning? A love of learning describes the process of engaging with new material, new information, and skills, and is generally positive and can withstand the frustration and challenge associated with it, as well as any negative feedback. I address these insights and questions as well as provide actionable ways to instill a love of learning at home with your children. On this episode, let's get started. Children naturally love to learn, but they might not like being taught in certain ways, children's natural curiosity pushes them to be eager to learn new knowledge. Sometimes, though, teachers have an improper way of teaching that might make a child shut down his or her willingness to learn, which is referred to as not learning. Not learning is a choice that a child intentionally or unintentionally makes to resist learning, this is not a rare occurrence. Children originally love learning, and the first intention is not to shut down learning. Although a teacher's approach to teaching can be a factor that makes students feel uncomfortable enough to to let them slow down or shut down completely their learning, this is especially true if the child is taught in ways that make him or her feel offended or alienated. Children can only learn superficial things on their own and need to be taught from more knowledgeable others in order to develop to their highest potential. Not learning emotionally hurts a child and can lead to the educational failure of that child. Non learning is often caused by unequal social powers and cultural alienation. Along with unequal social powers and cultural alienation, another cause of non learning is a teacher's low expectations of students that very often result in in a student's poor performance. Children can perceive whether a teacher is seeking excellence from them. Culturally relevant teaching is an effective way to help children learn. Teachers should use what children are familiar with as an entry point to teach them new things. This includes using a child's culture as a bridge to make connections to new knowledge. Culturally relevant teaching as well as high expectations are, along with praise and encouragement lead to good outcomes in a child's academic achievement. A love of learning is important for a child's cognitive development and intellectual discovery. The love of learning is a concept that can be used in many different ways and it can be liberating because the learner feels the power and capacity to understand, discover and grasp truth. It involves not only the idea of wanting to learn but also includes the joy and enthusiasm attached to that desire. A love of learning leads to the ability to pursue lifelong learning. It is possible to try and create an awareness of the student senior so that a love of learning can develop spontaneously, providing a learning environment that's free of fear and rich with opportunities to demonstrate a passion for learning as well as facilitating events and circumstances that allow for learning to occur or ways to encourage a love of learning. A love for learning is an element of fun and curiosity which is not forced. It also helps to incorporate humor and laughter and have an informal atmosphere in which students are able to ask questions to satisfy their curiosity without a fear factor. The learning environment should allow time for thinking and provide opportunities for firsthand experience in a stress free setting. The students have a role to play in this also in motivating themselves, changing their negative attitudes, moving away from just accomplishing an academic goal and being willing to commit to lifelong learning. Learning is a journey. Pursuing a love of learning has personal and societal benefits. One of the ways to develop a love of learning is to have the freedom and a learning environment to always say what you think, to look within yourself, to find your real opinion of an academic task, to rule out answers that may be wrong and thus gradually eliminated, and to do all of this in a stress free, fear free environment. In other words, the learning comes from the process rather than from the outcome or conclusion. A love for learning comes from within. If a student comes to feel a capacity within himself or herself which he or she has not felt or were not fully aware of before, then he or she is on their way to a love of learning. This in turn leads to a willingness to continue to learn, to reflect, and to develop throughout one's life. Developing a love of learning may not have an immediate payoff, but it should be considered an investment in the future. A love of learning involves increasing awareness of other people and their different outlooks and cultures, thus appreciating and helping to realize human potential. Can a love of learning be taught? It seems unlikely, at least not in the sense that certain actions will automatically lead to certain results, if usually not possible to tell what potentialities of a student are. But it is possible to try and create an awareness in the student so that a love of learning can develop spontaneously, because if it isn't spontaneous, it won't happen. And even if the love of learning can't be taught, it remains a challenge and even today remains a privilege to to try and create an environment in which it may occur. It's important that a classroom allows students time to reflect upon material so that they can form meaning, significance, and wider ramifications of the material which may not be immediately apparent. It would be better to present your ideas and allow students to grapple with those ideas seriously than to overwhelm students with a mass of material which would stand in the way of serious thought and reflection. A love of learning is a strength that educators would like to see in their students, parents want to encourage in their children, and employers try to foster in their employees. A love of learning refers both to the general individual differences and to a universal but individually varying predisposition to engage with particular content or have a well developed individual interest. It describes the way in which a child engages new information and skills with certain content. When a student has a love for learning as a strength, they are cognitively engaged and they typically experience positive feelings in the process of acquiring skills, satisfying curiosity, building on existing knowledge, and learning something completely new. There's also a motivational component that helps people to persist in the face of setbacks, challenges, and negative feedback. A love of learning describes the process of engaging content that may or may not have immediate achievement or immediate vision benefit to achievement as defined by academic tests. However, over time a student may develop a deeper or wider knowledge of content to be learned. Students with a love of learning mindset exhibit such thinking as I can't do this task now, but I think I will be able to do it in the future. I like to learn new things. I will do whatever it takes in order to do a task correctly. Learning is a positive experience for me. Students who exhibit a love of learning tend to have intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, a perception that they have the competence to learn new things and place a greater value on the content of what they expect to learn. Children tend to be optimistic about their competence and performance. Value tends to be tied to motivation for task engagement. Students who experience a love of learning appear more likely to appreciate what they learn. Love of learning is a strength for them and they are more likely to do the have positive feelings about learning something new, have the ability to self regulate their efforts to persevere despite challenges and frustrations, find connections to the content to be learned and generate strategies for approaching the content and then take the time to rethink their understanding, to feel challenged, to have a sense of possibility, to be resourceful, such as finding models that might help demonstrate a certain concept. They're also likely to be self efficacious and to feel supported by others in their efforts to learn. The love of learning as a strength needs to be nurtured if it is to be sustained sustained over time, well developed individual interests cannot develop without challenge. The learning environment that encourages a love of learning is an intricate web of relationships, the learner and the materials, the teacher or parent to the materials, the learner to the teacher, the teacher to the learner's academic work, the learner to the peers regarding academic work and the relationships among the learner, parents, and teacher regarding the academic work. In order for the love of learning to be sustained, a student needs to learn in a context in which each of these relationships support engagement and collaboration, and support is key. The student who doesn't have a love of life learning needs support to find ways to connect to learning, and the student that does have a love of learning also needs support to sustain any frustrations that are inherent.

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In learning new Skills Although most children enter kindergarten excited about learning to read and write, as well as being eager to know the world around them, by the time they reach middle school, those same children may look on learning as drudgery, certainly not the exciting opportunity that would propel them when they were younger. In order to instill a love of learning in children, they need to feel capable and skilled as well as competent. This leads to self motivation. It's also important that they have some choice and control over their learning and that they feel loved, supported and respected by their parents. Does it really matter if your child enjoys learning as long as he or she is doing the schoolwork? Actually, it matters a lot. Research has shown that when children study because they enjoy it, their learning is deeper, richer and longer lasting. They are also more persistent, more creative, and more eager to do challenging work. The emotional component to this is that children who want to learn feel less anxious and resentful than children who are coerced by bribes or threats. Self motivated students learn more, understand what they are learning better, and remember the material longer than other students. Learning can be so intense and yet enjoyable that it hurdles the student into a state of flow. Flow is this feeling of passionate focus, a pleasurable time in work and play when those two merge and when there's deep concentration in order to overcome complex challenges. The flow state doesn't occur very often, but it can be so intense and pleasurable that the student doesn't even recognize when they're tired or hungry. Every child has interests and passions. The key is discovering what these are. They may be conspicuous or inconspicuous. The more you encourage your child's hobbies, more likely then you will develop his own intellectual interests. Maybe in bugs in story writing, chemistry, music, sewing, and the more passion your child will bring to related academics. Nurturing a child's interests outside of school is particularly important because conditions at home are often more conducive to fostering passions than is the school environment. That's because in school, children typically have few choices. They're usually told what to learn and how and when to learn it versus at home, where a child is free to do what he or she likes. The best way to encourage interest is through direct experience. In other words, a child has to work or play on a computer to develop an interest in programming. Likewise, a child has to hear music in order to realize that he or she wants to play play a certain instrument. When a child has a passion, as long as it's safe and legal, that fans the flames. Recognize that your child's interests change as he or she grows. It's also important to understand that one way to nurture your child's passions is to allow that child not to be interested in everything. Equally important is that you model curiosity and pleasure in seeking knowledge because by doing so you teach your child valuable strategies for finding information. Even though you strive to promote your child's enthusiasm for learning, keep in mind that love of learning rarely exists in a pure state. External incentives for academic work such as grades or parents praise almost always exist side by side with self motivation. Children need rewards, grades, or other external incentives to keep going. Play is your child's first foray into loving learning. Young children learn best through play. Although learning through play isn't just for preschoolers, it continues throughout school and even throughout life. Here are some ways you can spark playful learning. Give your child a lot of time for free play and provide ample props for your child to play with, like Legos, blocks, Lincoln logs, empty boxes, paper towel rolls, cars, stuffed animals. You get the idea. The best way to introduce your child to basic academic skills is through everyday chores and playful activities. Be aware that over structuring your child's schedule takes time away from learning through play. If children don't have time of their own, they won't be able to experience their own interests and reap all the benefits of play. Play play and high quality learning are inextricably linked. The more your child learns through play and the more his or her intellectual life is infused with fun, the more his or her natural motivation to learn will flourish and the more likely the child will love learning his or her whole life long. There are three components of the love of competence, autonomy, and relationship. Let's address competence first. Competence motivates us all, and this is especially true for children. It's very satisfying to learn something new because it creates a sense of achievement. This feeling of satisfaction is motivated by what small children actually learn. That's why they insist on practicing and developing new skills like turning doorknobs, taking their shoes on and off over and over again, or even learning to walk. The motivating effect of feeling competent has high significance of learning. Research has shown that the most competent children feel academically, the more interested they are in their schoolwork and the harder they study. Simply put, competence breeds self motivation. To indirectly support your child's developing competencies, make sure that he or she has quiet time to study. The main idea is that being competent is one thing. For children to be eager learners, they need to know that they are competent and believe that they will become competent when they try something new. Next is autonomy. Autonomy is giving your child choice and responsibility. Making children responsible for their own learning promotes intentional motivation. Autonomy is important because it enables children to feel pride in their own achievement. Autonomy doesn't mean permissiveness Children still need a clear, well defined structure of rules, limitations and consequences. The last component of Love of learning is relationship. Making your child feel understood and support is key to having a close parent child relationship that promotes the child's self motivation to learn. This parent child relationship has three interrelated ingredients. Acceptance which is unconditional love connection meaning showing an interest in being involved in your child's life and being responsive to his or her needs and support respecting your child for who he or she is. These ingredients promote emotional security for children. A trusting relationship with your child gives you credibility. Having a close relationship with your child allows him or her to openly communicate with you about things that are going on in in his or her life. This close relationship also involves the child internalizing and adopting your values, including your beliefs about the value of doing well in school. Here are some action steps that you can take regarding this topic. You can nurture your child's desire to learn by helping him link with book learning to the real world. The more children see these types of connections, the more meaningful their schoolwork will be and the stronger will be their interest and pleasure in learning. It's important that you know when your child is studying so be sure to ask them or better yet, have them show you what they are studying. You can also ask your child's teacher what the class will cover in a particular month so that you get a general idea of the topics that the class will be addressing. Here are 10 ways to instill a love of learning at 1. Create a positive reinforcement mechanism that encourages your child to continue learning and to associate learning with positive experiences. This can include treats or praise and recognition. 2. Encourage your child to ask questions because this promotes an inquisitive and curious mindset. This also teaches him or her how to think, not what to think. Number three. Encourage writing and journaling in order to help them collect their experiences to write them down to analyze the information, thus helping them to develop critical thinking skills. 4. Make learning fun so that your kids are more engaged, attentive and focused. 5. Create a Daily routine that will help your children know what to expect each day and what is expected of them. Number 6. Limit screen time for all devices. 7. Create a learning environment like a reading nook with a table and chairs. 8. Lead by example. Children may not do everything that you say, but they always do what they see.

9.

Encourage your children to be active participants in their learning through experiments and other hands on activities. 10. Emphasize the importance of acquiring new skills because this helps to create a self reinforcing cycle of skill building, motivation and curiosity. The bottom line is that raising children who want to learn is something that every parent can achieve. Here are this episode's takeaways. A love of learning is a strength that educators would like to see in their students. Parents want to encourage in their children, and employers try to foster in their employees. Love of learning refers both to a general individual difference and to a universal but individually varying predisposition to engage with particular content or have a well developed individual interest. It describes the way in which a child engages new information and skills with certain content. Developing a love of learning may not have an immediate payoff, but it should be considered an investment in the future. A love of learning increases awareness of other people and their different outlooks and cultures, thus appreciating and helping to realize human potential. Can a love of learning be taught? It seems unlikely, at least not in the sense that certain actions would automatically lead to certain results. It's usually not possible to tell what potentialities of the student are, but it is possible to try and create an awareness in the student so that a love of learning can develop spontaneously because if it isn't spontaneous, it won't happen. A love of learning is important for a child's cognitive development and intellectual discovery. The love of learning is a concept that can be used in many different ways and it can be liberating because the learners feel the power and capacity to understand, discover, and grasp truth. It involves not only the idea of wanting to learn, but also includes the joy and enthusiasm attached to that desire. A love of learning leads to the ability to pursue lifelong learning. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please follow my podcast or whatever service you're listening to. This also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a rating, a review, or a comment on Apple or podchase. If you like this podcast, the best way to support me and help me grow it is by leaving a review. This helps my rankings and entices other people to listen to the show and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Additionally, connect with me on Instagram and Facebook with the handle kimjfields. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Be sure to stay tuned. On the next episode. I'll be revisiting the book banning issue. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.

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