Adult Learning Principles Applied to Children

In studying for a college class in library science, I came upon some interesting information.  The article I was reading was discussing how adults learn in relation to designing training programs to teach copy cataloging in a library environment.  The author of the article quotes some essential points from a book The Modern Practice of Adult Education and The Adult Learner by Malcolm Knowles.

In the book, Mr. Knowles lists six principles that describe how adults learn. 

1.  Adults need to know why they need to learn something before they learn it.

2.  The self-concept of adults is heavily dependent upon a move toward self-direction.

3.  Prior experiences of the learner provide a rich resource for learning.

4.  Adults typically become ready to learn when they experience a need to cope with a life situation or perform a task.

5.  Adults’ orientation to learning is life-centered, and they see education as a process of developing increased competency levels to achieve their full potential.

6. The motivation for adult learners is internal rather than external.

I found this fascinating, because while Mr. Knowles pertains the learning to adults only, having homeschooled for over a decade, I think all people, young and old, learn best in these ways. I want to go through these items, one by one, to explain why these principles apply to children as well.

1.  Adults need to know why they need to learn something before they learn it.

So often we set things in front of our children and expect them to learn it without them knowing why.  There is always one child that asks, "When will I ever use this?"  The truth is, sometimes they learn things they will never use, but is just an essential part of a well-rounded education and exposure to the world.  Other times, they spend time learning stuff that is pointless and is often forgotten once learned.  I don't believe most education is ever wasted.  Sometimes learning something that won't get used is just a way to grow the brain.  However, many times adults won't try to learn things that are unnecessary.  They have energy and attention that must be divided between various responsibilities, and delving into things they don't need to know would take away from the priorities in their lives.  So, they want to know why they need to learn something. 

We may not always owe a child an explanation of every single concept that they have placed in front of them to learn, but often understanding why they need to know something helps them to see that the world is vast and complex, and they should have an understanding of many of those various complexities.  That means understanding about plants and Geometry.  It means learning how to balance a bank account and understanding history. 

2.  The self-concept of adults is heavily dependent upon a move toward self-direction.

I don't believe this principle is just for children.  What is self-concept?  It is a collection of beliefs about oneself.  In other words, the direction a person moves in life will depend upon what they believe about themselves.  For children, education is often about learning the material placed in front of them.  If they do well, they believe they are intelligent.  If they struggle, they believe they aren't as intelligent.  In all actuality, how they learn often has nothing to do with intelligence, but if what they believe about themselves will determine the choices they make in their future.  A person, child or adult, that is given the freedom to learn in a way that fits them the best will make better choices because they won't feel that they don't measure up if they don't learn like the person next to them. 

This means that children often learn best when they have some autonomy in their studies, some say in what they learn.  They will have an interest, a curiosity, and that will help motivate them to learn about that area.  That self-direction will help them retain what they learn, causing self-concept to grow into confidence, which will help them to go deeper or branch out into wider selections of studies.

This isn’t to say that every subject they learn has to be a burning passion.  Like chores, some things aren’t necessarily fun but necessary.  Striking a balance gives children (and some adults) the tenacity and discipline to push through when things are not easy or pleasant, but also allows for delving deep into areas that they love. 

3.  Prior experiences of the learner provide a rich resource for learning.

Again, this is true for children as well as adults.  From birth we are learning.  Let your child explore the world.  Let them play in nature.  Let them read about what interests them.  Fill their world with stories.  Give them time to use their imaginations.  Those experiences will be a fertile soil for growing new ideas and interests.  

4.  Adults typically become ready to learn when they experience a need to cope with a life situation or perform a task.

My husband knows and understands Excel better than I do, though I have more experience with computers.  He had to learn it for his job.  He is a hands-on learner, and so he learned what he needed to do his job effectively.  I learned Excel for a math class, and I have forgotten most of it because I simply don't use it daily. 

The same is true for children.  They learn what they need to learn when they need to learn it.  Exposure to a variety of skills helps, but they won't master something until they do it often or need to use it in some way.  Learning about how to teach and how children learn in books has given me ideas and helped me in educating my children.  However, it hasn't been until I applied what I had read to the education I was giving my children that I saw the theories I had only read about come to life.  I can say that phonics helps a child learn to read, for instance, but until a child is sounding out a new word they encounter in a story, it is just a theory. 

5.  Adults’ orientation to learning is life-centered, and they see education as a process of developing increased competency levels to achieve their full potential.

Adults learn based on what they need to know or desire to know.  When I wanted to understand autoimmune diseases because they are impacting my family in such a detrimental way, I went on a research campaign to learn all I could.  I studied literature that was way over my head educationally, and looked up many of the terms to gain understanding.  

When I began to research my family s genealogy I didn’t know what to look for except to look at the “leaves” that were hints on Ancestry.com.  Then I stumbled upon multiple people with the same name living in the same area.  I had to learn to look for other clues, such as common relatives and important dates.  Eventually I was using Google translate to understand a Dutch genealogy site, looking for records Ancestry.com didn’t have...  and I discovered my family’s name in Hola d had been spelled differently.  

This is how most of us learn.  We dive into areas that spark an interest or that we need to know and we build from basic knowledge to more advanced knowledge. 

The same is true for children, but we often limit what they want to know in exchange for what we think they ought to know.  We want to have breadth at the expense of depth. I have struggled with this lately, and feel there should be some balance.  Yes, some concepts are built incrementally.  Other concepts will be learned as interest in them is sparked.  I am attempting to strike a balance between assigned and delight-directed studies.  It is new territory for me, but one that I believe can make a huge difference in learning.

6. The motivation for adult learners is internal rather than external.

This goes back to the concept of we learn what we need to know or what sparks our interest.  In children, most of the time the learning isn't internal, it is external.  They are told what to learn and when.  And, like I stated above, I am learning to strike a balance in this.  The learning that sticks with a child the longest is the learning that occurs when they are curious.

Yes, my child has to learn her math facts.  But does it matter if she studies horses for a year instead of plants?  How much math will she learn, to add to the foundation she already has, when she starts learning about horse racing and how horses are measured and weighed?  Won't she study some agriculture when she studies a horse's diet?  Life isn't separate subjects, and while we separate things much of the time, it doesn't have to all be divided up.  Learning is more innate and natural when it is following interests.  One area bleeds into another, and suddenly a child has learned about a dozen subjects in a short amount of time because their interest in one topic exposed them to a variety of others.

The best learning is learning that happens when the motivation is internal, whether as an adult or a child. 

I found these principles, while written for adults, were also applicable to children in so many ways.  Knowing that these principles are true for children is very counter to our public school system and the ways in which we educate them.  In a homeschool environment, however, it might just be the key to a top-knotch education.