Children Fighting to Learn: Conditions that Influence Learning

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Fight to Learn

The United Nations says that everyone has a right to education and that it should be free for young people. According to Laura Scandiffio, in Fight to Learn, Annick Press (2016), "Millions of children worldwide are denied that basic right." The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), says that close to 59 million primary age children are not in school and that 124 million children between the ages of six and 15 are not getting an education." Further, the source estimates that 250 million children are unable to read, write or do math.

What obstacles are keeping kids from learning? In addition to the common barriers keeping children from learning (poverty, child labor, war, and discrimination), apathy, boredom and failure to keep up with the dynamics of the current generation can also be part of the reasons that parents, teachers and students are in a fight to learn in the currents era.

In Best Practices, Second Edition written by Steven Zemelman, Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde (Heinemann/Reed Elsevier, Inc., 1998, pp. 287), the authors share that teachers don't just teach but rather the industry has gleaned more insights. They note, "Children don't learn rules first and then apply them, or sounds first and then words. From the beginning, young children engage in actual communication: requests, complaints, expressions of love, surprise, hurt, questions and answers." As Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde say, it is not a fad but rather speaking, reading and writing is active and holistic. Unfortunately, large or older school districts tend to be slower to adapt to more current regional trends or population demographics and therefore may lose in the fight to learn.

Typical educational terms such as scope-and-sequence, competency testing, and skill development perhaps are reflective of population shifts from the one-room school era to post-war baby-boomers. There was a need to adapt to the massive shift in the numbers of children and a practical way to manage teaching and learning with the headcount adjustment was mandatory. Unfortunately, the extremes were often lost in the masses.

Those children that were advanced or had special needs often then and now are challenged with larger class size, a common remedy with budget issues. Having more in a class in lower income regions, or where there are teacher shortages is a common approach. Some can handle it but those who have sensitivity issues or need extra help distract the momentum of the class, with ...