The Low-Tech Learning Style

This post will look at the low-tech learning style and how to implement it in our high-tech world.  Technology has done wonders for our society, but has it really made us smarter as a people?  Many people swear that technology has made us lazy as a society, and we have lost some wisdom and knowledge that we possessed before the advent of all this technology.  In the educational world, I have to agree.  Technology has made us mentally lazy, but even in today's society, it does not have to be this way.

What is Low-Tech Learning?
What do I mean by low-tech learning?  Low-tech learning is learning that does not utilize machines to accomplish its purpose.  Even calculators are considered technological assistance even though most people in the United States would be absolutely lost without one.  I, too, rely on calculators to tally up large and complicated sums even though I do try to keep my mental math skills sharp.  As a homeschooling mom, I was one of those teachers that did not allow calculators until you hit trigonometry that required a scientific calculator.  I expected my children to be able to calculate on paper and mentally even complicated mathematical equations.  How did these expectations serve my children?  They all survived advanced math courses in high school and college without any problems.  My youngest two went to public high school and took honors and advanced placement courses in high school.  I did not tolerate mental laziness, and it served all of them very well.

Back to Nature
My last post was on high-tech learning, and I admitted that my preschool experience did involve educational television.  However, my childhood was also filled with playing outside quite a bit.  Much is being made these days of getting children back to nature.  Many studies have been conducted touting the virtues of playing in the outdoors.  This has a great deal to do with low-tech learning.  Much science can and should be learned by children engaging with the natural world.  The foundations for many mathematical concepts are also laid by children learning to manipulate materials.  They learn about angles and develop a sense of numeration this way as well.  Playing outdoors also builds children's ability to understand their own limitations.  These basic survival skills have been lost in the present generations, and this is effecting math and science abilities.  They simply have no natural point of reference for certain concepts.  Therefore, they hit school behind previous generations in basic knowledge.  As a homeschooling mom, my children played outside as much as I did.  I must have missed the memo on helicopter parenting that became so prevalent in the parents of my children's peers.  Actually, I burned that memo and decided to thwart the philosophies of an entire generation on purpose.  I knew even as a young mom that the long-term consequences of the helicopter parenting philosophy would end in utter and complete disaster.  However, as a childcare provider regulations forced me to be a helicopter provider.  That is, until I decided to declare my independence and drop below licensing requirements.  I guess I am still a homeschooler at heart.

Open-Ended Toys
While the skills and experiences gained through outside play are invaluable, that serves as only half of the equation of low-tech learning.  The rest is in old-fashioned ways of teaching.  On this front I agree with about half of what most early childhood experts push in this particular concept.  They advocate making sure that the environment of young children contains many basic, open-ended toys such as blocks, empty containers, etc.  Open-ended toys do provide the opportunity for children to use their imagination more.  However, even though they advocate open-ended toys, they would have declared my toys as a child to be hazards.  People, you just cannot have it both ways.  Sticks and rocks and broken toys made up 3/4 of my childhood.  Perfectly safe environments remove a lot of opportunity for children to learn about risk and the brokenness that makes up the world we live in.

The Value of Direct Instruction
The point where I diverge from the early childhood experts comes down to the actual teaching.  I believe 1000% in direct instruction for most concepts.  I despise child-centered curriculums with a passion because I have witnessed the horrendous results of such curriculums when used in their purest forms in the homeschooling world.  Children need to be taught not led.  If you have to rely on leading a child, you open up both you and the child to be subject to the foolish whims of childhood.  There is a reason God put the verse, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.  Only discipline will remove it far from him,"in the Bible.  We have so idealized childhood that we no longer understand that some things in childhood should not carry over to the adult world.  Early childhood experts do not even acknowledge that children have foolishness coming out their ears at times.  All they talk about is reclaiming the magic of childhood and always holding onto the sense of wonder.  In the real world, a child's sense of wonder comes with a great deal of unrealistic expectations and flat-out ignorance.  Acquiring wisdom requires that we "put away childish things."

In summary, low-tech learning requires that children have many, many, many opportunities to handle natural materials and open-ended toys.  Free-play must constitute a great deal of a child's day.  When teaching is done, it must be precise and to the point directly instructing a child in the concepts that are necessary in today's world.  Technology needs to be a compliment and not the main source of any instruction.  For very young children technology is not even necessary, in my opinion.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457