What is a good way for teachers to stop interfering with their students' learning?

My niece teaches early childhood education. She says:
“PLAY: I believe play represents the highest level thinking and the most challenging intellectual work for young children. Children need large blocks of time each day to make choices, invent, and engage in imaginative creative social play.  As early childhood professionals we can support and preserve child’s play in a world where increasing pressures are diminishing the time for play.  Next to love, play is the essential element of childhood.”

@Judi I wonder how scary play theory would be for the advanced nuclear physics class

Oh the possibilities would be endless!!

Your “question” makes lots of presumptions.

One, that teacher’s interfere with learning. I do not agree with that. Many teachers facilitate learning.

Two, that children, if left alone, would just learn naturally. I also disagree with that.

Three, that channeling learning is necessarily a bad thing, which I also disagree with.

I really like the idea of power teaching, when you teach a concept to your students then allow the students to reteach to each other. It’s a small thing, but really is good for the student.

If anything we have teachers that are not involved enough. In JR high I was sitting on a floor in history. 30 desks and 40 students. They simply couldn’t handle the load.

It turns out I am freakishly good at math. In the fifth grade the teacher recognized this. When the class did math I was pulled aside and had a tutor. We lived in a good school district with small classes and resources. Prepare to be shocked. It was a wealthy neighborhood.

First things first: Eliminate a need to teach the test.

The issue teachers have is that they must answer to their boss, the school board. The school board makes a list of required subjects that must be taught, and the teachers have very little leeway, with large groups of children.

The Montessori and other alternative methods such as Waldorf rely on having small classes with a least one teacher for every 10 children, and ideally an aid as well.

@papayalily I am in the middle on the topic of teaching to the test. To go to high school, 9th grade, when I was in school students had to pass a basic aptitude test. The teacher did teach to the test for about two weeks before the test. Most of the test would be considered easy for an 8th grader, because it was fairly basic, but then there were some quirky things like learning all of the two letter postal codes, and some other things. I actually am very glad that test existed. It is also another opportunity to catch if a student cannot read well, or is extremely below grade level, and I did learn a few things. We did not have testing every year, it was every other year, and all tests previous to the 8th grade test did not require teaching to the test. I think the system was ok. In a school system so big, there has to be a way to objectively determine children are progressing, outside of relying on the teachers I think. We need to know if groups of children are at a distinct disadvantage because of the school they are in, so something can be done about it.

@JLeslie I think there are ways to properly use tests; I don’t think we’re using them. Most tests are used to either allocate funds or measure the teacher’s effectiveness, not get an individual student help (actual help, not just someone going “hmmm, he should get some help”). It’s sorta like a hammer: There are times when you need a hammer, and times when using a hammer will make things worse. Unfortunately, we keep using it when we need a wrench or a screwdriver, but not when we need a hammer.

private or homeschooling might be an option.. my education didn’t start until school was over… now I’m begging for a better one.

@papayalily I am completely against tying the testing scores to funds for the schools. There we agree. Actually, I think we agree overall. I too want testing to be a tool used to evaluate the students, not the teachers or influence the funding. But, the teaching and how the schools are run is all intertwined. I think the schools have too much to do with politics, and I think too many parents think they know what is right and are dead wrong, and they are voting for school superintendents. Teachers and parents don’t look at valid studies about education, they just think what they think, they don’t care what successful schools are doing in other parts of the country. Schools are run on a local level, which can be a mess when the people on the local level are idiots themselves. Generation after generation.

@marinelife That is simply your interpretation of my question. I thought that if asked that way it might provoke more interesting answers. I, not being from the US, hoped for diverse and global answers. It has nothing to do with one or another education system or approach.

If you took it personally, well, you neither know me very well – or perhaps you should ask yourself why you found the question offensive.

Me? I’m just learning.

Freedom!!!