Class Charter

Learning Together

Class Charter

Sharing the knowledge

• Share with class that as a teacher you have done some new learning
• Finding out about natural learning, democratic education and an envirethical curriculum

Natural learning

• Explaining how this term we will be learning in a natural way

Examples 1

• The fable of the Gingerbread Man

A childless old woman bakes a gingerbread man who leaps from her oven and runs away. 
The woman and her husband give chase but fail to catch him. 
The gingerbread man then outruns several farm workers and farm animals while taunting them with the phrase:
Run, run as fast as you can; You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.
A fox tricks and catches the gingerbread man by offering to ferry him across a river away from his pursuers. 

The gingerbread man was a natural learner, straight from the oven to taunting and out-running pursuers

• Discuss reasons for

1. Why the gingerbread man came to a sticky end?
   • Not learning from those around him
   • Listening to a wily fox
2. Who the fox may represent?
   • Authority - the system
   • People who want something from you - advertisers,

Explain that hopefully with natural learning students won't get eaten by a fox ;)

Example 2

• View
  • Hole In The Wall Experiment by Sugata Mitra
• Discussion points
  • How children who have never seen a computer can use one?
  • How children teach themselves in groups how to surf the internet?
  • Why children reading and then speaking a foreign language can explain ideas detail

Explore how natural learning is more effective in social groups

• Questions:

1. Are there other types of natural learning - walking, talking, whistling....
2. Do other species learn naturally - seagulls diving for fish, cats grooming themselves....
3. Why does working in a social group help natural learning - collaboration, sharing, bouncing ideas....

Explain that educationalists (people who study learning) say that child centred, self-guided learning is best :)

Democratic learning

Example 1

• View
  • Sir Ken Robinson - Changing Education Paradigms
• Discussion starters

1. Medication of children?
2. Children are smarter before they start school?
3. Why do we have schools?

Explain how to learn naturally its best to be involved in this process

Example 2

• Talk about how there are many democratic schools around the world
• View
  • Givol - a democratic school in a poor region of Israel

Envirethical Curriculum

• Explanation that not all schooling in the past was bad
• Elwyn Richardson - In the Early World
• Compare the class of 1960 to now - good/bad, changed/same

Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.