Page 81 - Issue 112 May-June 2021

Self-directed learning About the author Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist and author. Her book on self-directed learning, Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning, is out now, published by Robinson. naomicfisher@gmail.com We all know motivation matters in learning. When I personally am interested, I learn quickly, but when I’m bored, it takes me forever just to finish one page in a book. Children are the same. When many of their experiences of learning are negative, they end up feeling that they can’t learn at all. Children with SEND are particularly vulnerable here, and this can affect their self- esteem – which can last a lifetime. What is self-directed learning? In self-directed learning the learner chooses what to learn, and the learner can choose when to stop. They are autonomous. For this to work, it has to start with the child’s interests. These may be very far from what school is trying to teach. But when a child is not engaged with the school curriculum, what do you really have to lose? Spending a few months focusing on regaining a love of learning has to be better than spending months fighting about maths. Autonomy – the ability to make meaningful choices about your life – is not the same as independence. It’s about knowing that your decisions about your life matter and will be taken seriously. Autonomy can be supported in people who do not yet have the skills to be independent. For this reason, it’s particularly important for children with SEND who need to know that they can make choices about their life, whatever their academic abilities. “The learner chooses what to learn” It’s an education in empowerment, something which children with SEND need more than anything else. They need to know that their choices matter, and that they are the drivers of their own lives. Self-directed learning can look like many things. It could look like watching a video about the ocean or playing a game. It might look like making models with clay, or going for a walk and noticing the world around you. It often looks like conversation, answering questions and wondering about the world. Most of us have experience of interacting with our children in this way from their earliest years, before they went to school. Young children are brilliant at self-directed learning. They zero in on what they find most interesting and then persuade their parents to come along for the ride. As children get older their interests become more sophisticated, but the fundamentals are the same. When they are interested, they learn best. Self-directed learning takes advantage of this simple fact. One of the joys of self-directed learning with children with SEND is that it allows you to focus on their strengths. So much of what children with SEND do at school is focused on their weaknesses in an effort to help them catch up, but this can mean that they never get a chance to feel good about themselves and their learning. Yet the research shows that by focusing on strengths, weaker areas improve too – and it’s a lot more fun. This of course means that their strengths may look like nothing which is valued by school. Playing Minecraft or drawing pictures senmagazine.co.uk SEN112 81