JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY FOR CHILD DEVELOPMENT
1986, Volume 6, No. 10
The Learning Environment
Robert J. Doman Jr.
The most important factor in how much
and how well children learn is the learning environment itself.
If a child’s learning environment does not instill a
self-perception of success, it can inadvertently discourage
his or her development.
Ultimately, how much children learn
is a reflection of how much they like to learn. How much they
like to learn reflects how successful at learning they perceive
themselves to be. We enjoy success. We are motivated by success.
The strong child likes to arm wrestle, the quick child likes
to run races, the expert speller likes to play Scrabble, and
so on. When a child perceives herself as having the ability
to do something well, she is highly motivated while engaged
in it, wants to do a lot of it, and, as a result, gets better
and better at it. Turning children on to learning is key to
creating a positive learning environment.
Children learn as a result of the input
their brains receive from their senses. What they learn is
a reflection of the frequency, intensity, and duration with
which their brains receive specific input. We may be able
to make a child stay in one place for an extended period of
time (duration) while we go over and over the material (frequency),
but the child has control over the intensity of the input.
The child can be turned on or off. If turned on, the child
learns rapidly; if turned off, learning may never occur.
Turning the child on—or off—to
learning is largely determined by the learning environment.
A positive environment encourages learning; a negative environment
creates actual neurological dysfunction and discourages development
and learning. For example, when a parent comments on a second-grade
child’s math assignment, the comments may be positive
(this lets the child know he is doing well) or negative (this
can discourage and destroy the child's motivation). Often
the negative response comes quite naturally; therefore, we
must learn how to be positive. Look at the differences between
the positive and the negative responses to three second-grade
children after they completed an assignment of ten math problems.
Negative: "Johnny,
you're a very bright boy, and I expect a lot from you. Today
you got one wrong. You'll have to work harder and be more
careful next time."
Positive: "Johnny,
that's fantastic! You got nine right! How did you get so
smart?"
Negative: "Alice,
you got three wrong—you can do better than that. I'm
afraid I can't give you a happy-face sticker today."
Positive: "Alice,
that's great! You got seven problems right, and three were
real tough problems on that page. Let me show you how to
do these real tough ones."
Negative: "Billy,
this is terrible. You got more than half of these problems
wrong. You're just not trying!"
Positive: "Hey,
Billy, you're getting it. Look, you got this, this, and
this one right. Super! You watch while I do these other
problems. I bet you can get them right the next time."
Can our children develop and learn
in a negative environment? Yes, most do, but children cannot
thrive in a negative environment, nor can they develop and
learn as they would in a positive, reinforcing environment.
Symptoms of the negative environment include negative attention-getting
behaviors such as defiance, lack of motivation, anger, poor
self-image, and lack of development and learning. Creating
a positive, reinforcing environment for learning can dramatically
change our children's attitudes, self-image, rate of learning,
and the degree to which learning occurs.
What children get out of the educational
process is a reflection of what we put in. If we are not pleased
with the output, we should examine and modify the input, creating
a positive educational environment. We must point out what
children know and applaud what they do well. In return, they
will be motivated to learn—and do—more.
Reprinted from the Journal
of the National
Academy for Child Development
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