Saturday, 2 July 2016

Child-led or adult-led

The Forest School experience is quickly helping us see the many benefits of standing back and letting children lead their learning - including allowing them to 'get bored'. However, where does adult-led start and child-led stop, for example with our treehouse pulley that was so successful? 

Although Forest School learning is conducted in a wildly more natural environment than the conventional classroom it is still adult-led on some level. In addition to leading some activities like fire making, our facilitator always had in mind a spot of the forest that gave the children the best opportunity to lead their learning and experience independence at a young age. These spots were not enormous nettle patches or favourite spots for dogs to relieve themselves. Neither were they flat patches of grass with no challenges. Was us creating a pulley too adult-led? It created an environment that allowed us to stand back and let the children lead, or did it control and direct their learning too much?

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