Stress and learning do not mix well. Children come into the world having to learn a considerable amount and are eager to do it. Here is an example of how children can teach themselves if given the chance. If you do not have time to view the video, here is the gist of it. Sugata Mitra talks about how how he placed a computer in a hole in the wall in a city in India. He was hoping that it would attract the attention of the kids living on the street, which it did. Without any instruction and never having seen a computer before, they quickly learned how to use it. He did further experiments with interesting results. He found that the children, who did not speak English well, improved their knowledge of English. The children spent time teaching one another. In fact, the learning was better when there were not enough computers for everyone, forcing the children to work together. Mitra found that he could improve performance by having volunteers interact with the children and do nothing more than provide positive reinforcement. The children responded to challenges to research the answers to questions that they were given.
From speaking to teachers, I have learned that sometimes a teacher will give a recreational math problem as a reward for completing assignments. Think about this for a moment. The reward for completing what is all too often a mindless drill is the opportunity to tackle a problem that requires creative out of the box thinking. Something is very wrong here.
So what do we take away from this? Some have suggested that students do not need teachers. I strongly doubt that this is the case. It must help to have someone knowledgeable about the material to track the students’ learning and to provide guidance. The results do suggest that students are motivated to solve problems of a general nature. Solving problems provides an intrinsic reward, which can be reinforced by providing positive feedback.
The current system of having students compete with one another and providing failing grades for not mastering the material is not the way to go. The No Child Left Behind program of constant testing is not working, by the program’s own standards. Test scores are not going up. The U.S. is still in the middle of the pack in international testing. The solution is not to create more stress, but to provide an environment where students can engage in exploration and learn from their mistakes without being penalized for them.