I've been informed by a teacher that it's illegal to use NLP techniques or suggestopaedia techniques on children in school. Here in Australia and New Zealand.
I can understand why.
Really learning is easiest if there is no pressure attached on the child. Exams and test is what unnerves them over the years. I think it helps if parents encourage learning and talk to kids about what they learnt more than just waiting until they see the report card to discover that the child is having difficulty. If the child is free to talk about challenging subjects they will often discover they are learning. However as the system goes they are required to slog it out themselves, not knowing who to ask or how to find the answers then when they get the report card there is a please explain or you need to try harder.
As adults we procastinate when faced with something daunting as children we discovered this ineffective form or escapism. We knew we needed to try harder for learning and also knew we didn't know what we needed to learn. This caused us to find our escapist techniques, Daydreams (not trying hard enough you need to concentrate more... when you think about it day dreaming is pure concentration on something just not what they want you to concentrate on,) or Agressive behaviour, you need to settle down so that you can focus, the child is told. The thing is we do not tell them "how" to do what is expected of them only "what".
Perhaps the problem remains with the fact that even we never learnt 'how' we stumbled in the dark.
How does one understand a math problem?
How does one memorise a poem or tables?
How does one learn to spell better?
How does one comprehend the written language?
Listen to the kids it will challenge you to explain not the 'what' but the "how". There is no easy answer so it seems to me we need to work with the child to discover the "How" with them and that takes patience more than anything else.
Alex
