Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Experiential Learning

Has anyone here had a kid rebel against experiential learning? This is sort of a spin off from another thread I started, but I wanted to explore this issue. I was searching on places like Hoagies for info on experiential learning and gifted kids, and (surprisingly, I thought) didn't find any specific information. The internet is full of praise for this approach. My kid has been in a school like this for all her life -- sometimes it has worked well, but the older she has gotten the more impatient she has been for "just give me the info and I will absorb it" type teaching.

We have just pulled our DD out of a play based curriculum school where the day is based around "investigations" and "authentic learning". I heard the academic who designed the curriculum talk, she was likeable and passionate but I left thinking "well sure, but if all that is true I can do it better myself by homeschooling." and it's not that i think her theories aren't valuable and interesting but I question the suitability for my DD in particular and for the population of a high fee / high socio economic area private school. Didn't work for us at all.

If learning through direct experience were always best, we would not need schools and books. Children would learn just by experiencing the world. In reality, the existence of books and (ideally) teachers who know their subjects permits students to learn much more than they otherwise could.

The ability to learn from books depends on intelligence, and experiential learning has the "advantage" of ensuring that no one learns too much.

I think the problem is that it is experiential based on the biases of adults. Its like play based learning - it imposes adult ideas of what play should be and ignores that for some kids at least, learning new things can be play.

I'm wondering at what age your dd lost interest in experiential learning? We are doing a lot of enrichment for our first grader on our own (as more and more ld's are identified there is literally no time in her school day for the comprehension enrichment we had hoped she would be receiving). Along with reading, watching videos, etc we try to have her experience things first hand. When we revisit what we read or watched it means so much more to her.

i.e. Last fall she overheard a conversation that she was descended from a number of people on the Mayflower so she took a book about the pilgrims out of her school library. It sparked her interest so we borrowed all the books and videos we could from the public library and then went to Plymouth for the weekend. We explored the Mayflower II replica, attended a harvest dinner, met modern day members of the Wampanoag tribe in their recreated village and also "met" one of her great, great ... great grandparents in the recreated 17th century English Village where they have actors portraying some of the actual settlers. Experiencing it was great but I think it was the combination of prereading and actual experience that led to her fully appreciating what she was learning. A few weeks later when her first grade class talked about Thanksgiving she *really* understood it.

I would LOVE for her to be in a school that emphasized this approach but unfortunately with all the ld issues I don't think we really have that option. Fine motor deficits also make hands-on learning a bit of a struggle sometimes even though she loves it. She loves nature so we put her in several marine biology camps as well as an environmental camp during the summer. Maybe it's the ld's but being able to actually handle the crabs, insects, seaweed, chickens, etc seems to be really important for her. I am really interested in hearing more about what has or hasn’t worked for others.