Social Learning, Part 2

Working with friends or peers is a great way to learn. You can hang with your mates and perhaps break a large project into smaller chunks. You often get to find out something about someone you didn’t know.

I once had a boy in my class who was always tired. By lunchtime, his eyelids were heavy, and eating didn’t help. I sometimes found him sleeping in the book corner. Because he was sleepy, he was often grumpy. When other kids mentioned this, he would shout at them to leave him alone.

He’d run out of the classroom and hide somewhere. He became a bit of a handful, and at peer learning time, no one wanted to work with him. When I spoke with his mum, I discovered she worked until late at night. My boy was left home to care for his younger sister. There were no other family members to help out.

During one week of winter term, three classes, plus mine, headed to a bush camp. We teachers were worried about my tired boy’s temper and how he’d cope.

We needn’t have worried. When it came time for bush cooking, vegetables had to be peeled, cut into pieces, and cooked over an open fire. Many children struggled, but not my tired boy.

He had potatoes and carrots peeled and sliced in the blink of an eye. Other groups asked him for help. He learned it by watching his mum. That’s social learning.