Whales and Wonder Often Times

¶ … Whales and Wonder

Often times we have heard people refer to some children as slow learners or simply uninterested in studies. But then the same child would display extraordinary intelligence and learning ability when he is shown a new game. We can be puzzled but we never understand that intelligence is intelligence- plain and simple. If the child is not showing much learning ability in studies, that is not because he is slow but because he simply doesn't find studies as attractive or colorful as the things in his other world. A friend of mine is a classic example of this. She was always the one whom her mother was complaining about. She never got the right grades and was simply not showing any interest in learning in classroom. However if we asked her about any movie, from any decade and any music tune, she would know everything about it from a to Z. It was simply incredible. We were all in awe of her in that way. However it never dawned on us that she was simply, as Egan et al. puts it, a "reluctant learner" in the classroom.

The authors focus on the subject of reluctance displayed by some children in classroom environment. They are intelligent beyond belief in other areas but ask them to learn capitals of different countries and they might run so fast you won't know what hit them. This happens because the child finds the classroom boring and curriculum highly unattractive. He is not like others and hence cannot force himself to learn. This creates trouble for the child and problems for others as people want to help and do not know what needs to be done.

The authors cite some researches and say that if we understand the three important cognitive tools of story structuring, binary opposites and forming images from words, we could better design our curriculum and could make learning enjoyable and fun.

The article picks up a very important subject and one that should be shown to every single teacher in the world. Teachers who often find students disruptive or slow because they are not showing interest in class lessons can benefit from learning about reluctant learners and the ways this issue can be handled. Every student deserves a chance to explore his world and since their imagination is very fertile, they need their teacher's assistance to learn through their own imaginative tools and in their own way.