Students or Learners?

In browsing what links Professor Harlan has made available on her Twitter site I came across a blog posting by David Warlick entitled “Are they students or are they learners?”  I was instantly intrigued, and on further reading I became even more intrigued with this idea.  He has managed to articulate an idea I have had simmering in my mind since I was a teen.  As a quick history, I was a public school kid up until my 8^th grade year when I spent a year in private school, and in 9^th grade my parents made the best decision of their lives…they decided to homeschool, starting with me.  I learned really quickly the difference between a student and a learner, by necessity.  No longer was I merely a student doing what I was told to by a teacher, I became responsible for my own education with the assistance of my parents.  It was like handing a shopaholic an unrestricted bank account!  I graduated from high school one year later.  All of my three younger siblings, who were homeschooled as well, have excelled far beyond what I was able to do.  As I was reading this blog posting by David Warlick I kept thinking that this method for “teaching” works really well in a smaller atmosphere, and can understand how some teachers would have a hard time applying this idea in their classrooms, but the underlying principle of teaching kids to be learners rather than students is a sound one.  Learning should be fun!  Not all the time, of course, because we all have subject we don’t like or excel at, but learning shouldn’t be something that kids dread.  The hardest age to teach is tweens.  I have seen this in my younger siblings, who all went through a brief stage of disinterest, as well as my nieces and nephews (who are still in the stage of disinterest).  Learning needs to engage the minds and imagination of kids.  Once they catch the bug it’s incurable!  We, as librarians, also need to be enthusiastic about learning…we can influence where parents sometimes cannot.  If we are enthusiastic about a subject, or learning in general, we can infect others with our enthusiasm.  Warlick makes a suggestion in having a bulletin board of what we, as the teacher/librarian, are learning currently outside our “work” requirements.  I think this is a great idea and could have application even in a library setting.

Warlick, D. (2010).  Are they students or are they learners?  2¢ Worth. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=2762