Are Schools Teaching The Best Way to Help Students Learn?

I truly believe most schools are trying to teach the best way to help students learn, but several factors interfere. Some of them being, depending upon the school, number of students in a class, amount of paperwork teachers are required to complete by their district, socio-economic status of school, motivation of the teacher, to name a few. School and home are interconncected and one cannot expect a child's school to fulfill all needs. A child raised with a high level of parental interaction is sure to exhibit a higher level of learning, etc. "In these reading activities, mothers are attempting to function in what psychologists call a child's zone of proximal development—to stretch what the child can do with a little assistance (see Box 4.1 above). As the child advances, so does the level of collaboration demanded by the mother. The mother systematically shapes their joint experiences in such a way that the child will be drawn into taking more and more responsibility for their joint work. In so doing, she not only provides an excellent learning environment, she also models appropriate comprehension-fostering activities; crucial regulatory activities are thereby made overt and explicit." There is clearly no substitute for the earliest stages of child development and the benefit of parental contact.

Through primary grades, most children are motivated and eager to absorb. When children begin to recognize differences in themselves compared to others, I believe their learning capabilities change also.

I am a bodily-kinesthetic learner. I train regularly at a Pilates studio and mind/body connection is the key to the entire process. I have to actually do something to assimilate it and hence be successful at a task. I believe most children learn in this same manner.