Schools are all about problem solving
Do you like problem-solving? Schools are all about problem-solving. Children are invited to pose questions and go through a process of exploring optional ways of learning about the matter. You could say that it is quite open-ended and some people who are more closed in the way they work feel that inviting questions is not the best way to learn. Whatever your thoughts, education is all about making inquiries and investigating and probing into issues. We are encouraging our children to be problem solvers, to accept that there are various ways to look at a problem and various ways to explore options.
As parents, this is an opportunity to support the child’s learning by being someone who doesn’t put all the answers in front of the child. Your role is to explore questions with your child. Asking questions and together reflecting on different ways to look at a problem. You have many opportunities as a parent to share in this method of teaching children.
Consider:
Schools, problem solving in The Primary Years
When you are together in the car this is a great time to explore ideas together perhaps about what you see outside.
Read some content of the newspaper to your child. Discuss some topic that lends itself to being seen from many angles.
Plan to have a weekly family discussion on some controversial matter. Remember to give your child ample opportunity to respond with ideas. If you watch some news together there is plenty of content there for discussion and general inquiry.
Tune into some of the work the child is doing at school that may involve a project on some topic. Notice how there are many questions being posed about that topic. Here you can join in with some ideas of your own.
In engaging with your child through an inquiry approach to ensure that you value their opinions and ask about their sources of information. After all, questioning leads to quite a lot of researching.
When you see the research that your child is doing on a set topic, tune in with some question’s about the nature of the research and how it fits into the whole topic.
With younger children, you can still explore with them many of the questions that they ask on a regular basis. They love the question…
“Why?”
This is a chance to explore different answers together.
These thoughts are simply to help parents tune into the nature of the inquiry approach which is all about showing an investigative attitude to all areas of learning. The more we question, the more we explore optional ways of looking at situations and problems.
“Questions are the engines of intellect. The cerebral machines which convert energy to motion, to curiosity, to controlled inquiry.”