TRACK AND TRACE METHOD

Keeping your toddler busy while giving his brain right kind of stimulation to increase the brain power and physical agility is challenging but quite an interesting project to take on.

After deciphering our language learning path, I figured out that me teaching him or someone else teaching him will be forced learning at any point in his life but if he has the urge to learn, to know then he will find the source of learning and do it all willingly. And just then, I stumbled upon the term called child led learning. There are ways to make child led learning happen without forcing them to sit, concentrate or leave their play in between. Forcing them to learn something just because their peers have already learnt it, will either turn them into submissive or rebellious beings. But, if we just bring things to their notice and then wait for them to naturally build their curiosity about it, then neither we'll have to force them into learning nor worry if they are learning enough. Hence we need to understand that lessons can be weaved around their plays and plays can be created to direct learning.

I know, we are so grained into the mundane that coming up with new ways of initiating learning seems difficult and doubting that the system can be flawed is impossible as we've been conditioned to follow the usual, blindfoldedly. Okay, I am not inventing something up or doing something extraordinary out of quest to promote organic learning ways. There are methods established that can give us ideas on how to integrate play with work and also bring to our notice what are the most foundational lessons for learning and how those lessons can be imbibed in a child to the earliest so that he can reap its benefits sooner in life. These methods of learning, like Unit method, Charlotte Mason method, Montessori method, Waldorf method, Unschooling method and Radical Unschooling method have been built on different concepts of raising learners for life. Each one is different in its approach but their concern over treating a child as a data feeding computer is the same.

No, I am not saying we all need to follow them to their written points or that we need to do courses in the respective method to be able to bring them into our homes. Thanks to Google, we can access their ideologies and tips and bring in whatever we find suitable and necessary for our house and child.

Ever since I figured this out, I have fixed a way to bring new learnings into his notice. I plant them around him and let him approach them when he feels interested. Here's our step by step recipe to learning derived from intensive Google research and own experience-

1. Firstly, I erased all the benchmarks I had put together in my mind watching other kids, like ABC by 1.5 years, 1000 words by 2.5 years and early schooling.

2. I then started observing A and his efforts throughout the day. He is always upto something and if I pay attention, I learn what the ultimate goal he is trying to accomplish like may be learning to jump or trying to understand the arrangement of batteries in his car or light and shadow.

3. Then, I go ahead and acknowledge his efforts and try to motivate him for sticking to it and not giving up if he cannot crack down what he is trying to learn. Sometimes though, he wants to be left alone. And I do so even if I know he is heading the wrong way.
 
4. Ignition. When the first three steps are taken care of, I am in a position to know what is it that he is ready for but is foraging in the wrong direction or what is it that he is ready to take on as a next learning step. Here, I know I should intervene in the subtlest way. I put an idea or method in front of him (mostly in the form of a book, as it's our chosen way of learning about things but also sometimes by practical examples) and let him decide if he wants to take it. If you know the toddler brain, they would never accept help and so does A. But once he figures out he needs to take it for further exploration, he accepts it and comes to me for further queries regarding the same if need be.

So basically, INTRODUCE - WITHDRAW - WAIT - JUMP IN (ONLY IF INVITED) that is my game plan. So, he learns through his own queries at his own pace and on his own track, not through a predetermined path and I trace the subtlest of his development and guide him. We are still in a dilemma of schooling or unschooling but till we decide, we'll continue with this track and trace method of learning.