Live learning
Education for the Future | Personal Journal & Field Experience | Sept 25, 2008 | 1 hour field work
The boy and I were de-weeding the fruit and vegetable garden today. We are getting some late crops this year what with the tomatoes, strawberries and blueberries still coming in. The boy has grown to be fond of fruits especially those that he can pick himself and forage on. He quickly learned how to identify fruits. Now, he is working on identifying ripe fruit.
As I crouched down next to him pointing out green, orange and almost red tomatoes, it occurred to me that this was the boy's first practical exposure to colors. We have never tried to teach him the colors because it just doesn't make sense to do it by itself. On the other hand, distinguishing unripe fruit from the ripe fruit seems like a grand way to learn colors. So, I kept saying, "green, not ready, orange, getting ready, red, let's eat". I think he caught on. However, it wasn't enough for me to tell him so. So, he bent down next to me and picked out a green strawberry to eat. I kept saying, "not ready, cannot eat". But, that didn't stop him. He went on right ahead and ate it. This is when I realized that while I could appreciate the live and real nature of learning colors in a situation that demands learning them, I hadn't recognized the deeper principle behind this kind of learning. That being that this kind of learning is experiential, to the core, all the way. So, when the boy picked a green strawberry to eat, while he could trust me and not eat it, there was no better way for him to learn what 'unripe' meant other than by tasting an unripe fruit. It was just so right that he wanted to eat the green strawberry. I expected him to toss it after his first bite but what did I know? He went right on to eat more than half of it. I was so intrigued, I ate some too. The only way it seemed different from a ripe one was that it was more sour. Yet again, the little chap had taught me a great life lesson.
There really is no substitute, not even a single step removed for learning directly and completely from life, taking it all as it comes, in its entirety, feeling it all, seeing it all, living it all. What one might learn from these real experiences lasts forever and teaches us not just what we learned but also how we learned.