Steiner College

Optimizing knowledge and mastering understanding

Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats - Poet

GOING BEYOND LEARNING TO ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE

Most students in the upper grades of school education have already made a few choices on future career paths and Steiner learners have in most cases made excellent choices tailored to optimize on specific capabilities and abilities. However, they still have a long way to go and the best that can be said about a youngster entering the final segment of secondary education (or senior school) is that they have, to some extent, “learned to learn”.

So the challenge facing the facilitators, teachers and mentors of these kids is to optimize their toolkits, skill sets, capability portfolios etc. and set them on the actual path of learning which lasts a lifetime. Not easy, certainly, but greatly rewarding nevertheless for parents, educators and students.

The key here is not mastering a given skill for a given exam result per se. Rather, it is mastery over the entire process of learning and how to utilize that mastery in responding to every significant learning challenge that these youngsters will face going into the future. In short, the process, as Steiner Learning understands it, is to future-proof the knowledge acquisition and utilization capabilities of their students years and decades after they have ceased to be “students” and gone on to become contributing citizens of the world.

To achieve this kind of control over their lives, it is not enough that students perform well at exams. We have seen enough research on the subject to show that academic achievement in terms of high grades does not automatically translate into making a student a successful human being. Indeed, the students with high early success who go on to replicate those feats throughout life are comparatively rare. In fact, research has shown that sustained ability to accomplish things in life occurs in individuals not because of education but despite of it. Therefore, it is obvious that some other element, some “completion or optimization parameter” is lacking in mainstream education and this element is not some sort of magic bullet but rather one that must be applied throughout a child’s growing years to ensure that a high quality human being is the result. All of Steiner Learning’s programs are therefore geared to bring a child to this point, where the last thrust is simply a “finishing flourish” to a process started years earlier.

At Steiner Learning, the LEARNlab takes on this task, offering each student a plethora of optimization and top-up programs based on their choice mix and includes, but is not limited to mainstream subjects, university entrance exam preparation, preparation for scholastic exams, improvement of language capabilities, engagement in foundation programs, involvement in technical education programs an preparation for professional examinations. Additionally, the students are provided with the opportunity for a wide range of extracurricular activities and social responsibility initiatives.

How does it work?

STEP 1 - MOTIVATION: Steiner kids who have reached this level are often lulled into a sense of security where they believe that they can rely on their innate capabilities to achieve their academic objectives. This is a common mistake made by kids who are happy in their choice mix and Steiner educators are fully aware that the very happiness and academic contentment they strive to create for their kids can boomerang on them. Therefore, special, tailored motivational strategies for each individual is created by the LEARNlab with the aim of reiterating the commitment to academic and social excellence along with the discipline that goes with it.

STEP 2 - ACADEMIC TOP-UP: The LEARNlab ensures that the kids facing their second serious academic challenge are fully on top of their academic subjects and offer a series of instruments in line with the PRE program for this purpose.

STEP 3 - SOCIAL AND RECREATIONAL TOP-UP: The LEARNlab provides various opportunities for their students to engage in high-quality recreation, extra-curricular activities and social engagement to optimize a student’s social and performance related skills. In these efforts, Steiner takes a different route to most mainstream efforts in this arena with the emphasis being on adhering to the highest standards of human excellence and human ideas of ethics, morals and justice. Therefore, the greatly negative mantras of our time such as “win for the sake of winning” and “win at all costs” and “the end justifies the means” are actively discouraged and the child’s mind refocused on winning because of excellence in performance while ensuring that the less skilled are also helped to optimize their own potencies. Steiner therefore redefines a “winner” as one who not only excels at whatever sport or art or extra skill they possess but is also enabled to enable others through sharing and caring.

STEP 4 - APPLY TECHNIQUES FOR RESULT ENHANCEMENT: The key areas that will be focused on our neutralizing threats and reducing the result impact of weaknesses. For this purpose, Steiner provides some kids who have weaknesses with specific tricks, exam techniques, memory enhancement methods, time management etc. that will reduce issues. For children who show ability in specific areas, the aim is to optimize those skills and to ensure high level examination performance.

STEP 5 - MONITOR BUIILD UP TO EXAMS: When students are preparing for examinations, they are assailed with many challenges. Managing time among various subjects, managing stress, maintaining motivation and maintaining discipline are a few. Whether the engagement with the student is short or long term, Steiner educators are constantly aware of the intermix of activity and emotion related issues and watch over the students and respond quickly to the slightest indication that all is not well. This type of personalized engagement of all of the students is aimed at one thing: building confidence and maintaining it at the highest possible level right up to the point where walk out of an exam hall after having sat their exams.

Program for Optimizing Education - Subject Matrix

Phone:	094 718152579
Fax:	094 718152579
Email:	support@steiner.lk
Web:	http://www.steiner.lk