LEARNING BASICS THE PLAY-WAY METHOD

In the 1960s,  a new pseudo-professionalism came to education. The focus was on intellectualizing not memorizing. The movement started in the United States. Please click:

WHO SABOTAGED AMERICAN EDUCATION?

PNG HAS OBE WRONG, WRONG WRONG

IS OBE LESS BASICS AN ENEMY STRATEGY

Some fool teachers managed to convince the educational world that memorization was a lower level of learning and had to be removed from teaching programs.

But the brains of children are like a blank sheet that has to be written on by intellectual thought and memory. So much has to be memorized helped with the thinking process.

My mother used to say that as a primary school pupil, she had to memorize all the capes and bays of Australia from Cape York around the coastline to Cape York. That might be stretching memory a little too far.

We all have all kinds of memory from aesthetic memory, language memory, rhythm memory, modulation memory, literary memory, numerical memory. These pattern our behaviour. Schools have the job to pattern memory.

But some fool teachers want to develop all this through the intellect. They would not have the intellect to know how to do that. Or to know that they are totally in error. Our memories carry all input from life.

I once attended the RAAF School of Language in 1973 for 12 months to learn Bahasa Indonesia. Students had to memorize 40 words a night, every night. (That's very bad.  You should have intellectualized the words).

I can still remember 75% of the words I learned. Six months in Indonesia would bring back the rest. Kata kata ada di belakang otak saya. Bisa didepankan dengan segera kalau ada kesempatan.

Do not forget the old saying:

USE IT OR LOSE IT  and also

YOU CAN NOT LOSE IT IF YOU HAVE NOT GOT IT.

From the 1960s, chanting multiplication tables was out. Pupils were to "intellectualize" the tables, whatever that meant. My daughters in PNG are 15 and 14 years old and still have to work out their tables on their fingers.

That is why so many students do not know their tables. That would put students behind in any cohort of students. Besides chanting disturbs other classes.

Memorizing poetry was out. Now students do not learn the rhythm and modulation of language. Reciting poems as a class was definitely out. Singing was out. We used to sing every week to the ABC music program.

Spelling and derivation of words was out. Students learned to spell by reading books. Learning the structure of sentences was out. Students learned by appreciating sentences in books. Who are we fooling?

Learning came about by the play-way method. If learning required effort, it was being presented wrongly. If it was not interesting, the students could switch off.

I completed primary school in 1959 and learned so many basics that stay with me yet and enable me to write on so many skills on this blog. 

We learned to develop our vocabulary by expanding on Latin and Greek roots which gave students categories of several hundred words. Please click:

LATIN FOR PNG STUDENTS

We analysed sentences and were able to understand the structure of sentences in the form of phrases and clauses. Please click:

STRUCTURE OF SWEET ENGLISH

We memorized poems for homework and learned the rhythm and music of the English language.

We memorized the multiplication tables to be tested in class and chanted by students, softly so as not to disturb other classes.

We practised our script by copy book.

We rewrote wrong spellings many times correctly.

We sang songs and learned language, rhythm and music.

Many teachers are not among the intelligensia of the nation. Many are in the lower echelon of graduating college students. 

Many follow like sheep. New strategies come in and old strategies go out like a pendulum swinging. Please click:

TEACHERS NEVER LEARNED THE BASICS

New techniques could provide enrichment to the old techniques. No. The pendulum has swung. It all goes out to make way for the new. Many teachers are stupid people.

I had a teacher in Grade 6 in 1958 who would give us a model picture which we had to reproduce exactly.

So many pupils were shouted at because they did not get the shading right of the possum on a stick. Not good teaching.

The basics are the foundation of learning. Why is that not obvious to all teachers? Students will fail if they do not master the basics.

Perhaps the elitist ethic of pseudo-professional teachers is that students deserve to fail if they can not master the basics by themselves. Stupid and unfair people.


Bruce Copeland BA BEdSt
Teacher in Australia and Papua New Guinea
1966-2012