Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. |
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William Butler Yeats - Poet | |||||||
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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. |
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How does it work? |
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