The Building of Learning

(Part 1)

I have used the building of a house to illustrate many aspects of learning. A sentence: Nouns are the foundation, verbs are the walls, articles the roof, adjectives and adverbs the paint siding and things that make the house interesting. A story: The characters, plot, and setting are the foundation. The story elements. In the beginning you build the framework. The middle you put on the siding and the roof. You paint and floor the inside. The ending is where you put in the furniture. You bring it all together so you can live happily ever after. We can even go further to include the letters of the alphabet as the base foundation, with words being the walls.

Although I normally talk about the building as a lesson for foundation language arts or math, I now feel that it’s more about the building of knowledge. Our learning house if you wish.

People have often spoken of kindergarten, and even preschool, as the foundation being laid for the rest of the education. Each grade following laying the blocks to support future learning. Each grade is adding to the structure with graduation as the final, finishing touches. And if the student goes to college they are putting an addition onto the house of knowledge they have already built.

Too often though, our learning houses are sloppily put together, with holes in many of our floors, ceiling, and roofs. Students are falling between the cracks. The squeaking wheel gets the grease, as the saying goes. So if a student is quiet, well behaved, and doesn’t ask for help, they are too often overlooked, not seen. As teachers, we are too busy with the management of the students with the squeaky floors, to see, or even look for, the students that aren’t squeaking for help. And the real problem is that both these groups of students need help. Both these groups have the same holes in their floors, ceiling, and roofs. It’s just that the groups ask for help in different ways. And we have to realize this and learn to identify them, so we can patch the holes before their houses fall in.