You’ve heard about the brain research and are thinking, “Am I doing all I should be doing to help my child be as smart as she can be? Should I be playing Mozart or buying computer programs?”
Your David is having difficulty with reading and writing and doesn’t seem to care. The teacher says to do more reading and writing at home.
School was a challenge for you. You don’t want it to be a challenge for your child, but you don’t know how to do things differently than the way you were raised.
You are beginning to feel like your child’s chauffer. You take your child from sports to dance class to clubs. Dinner together is at McDonald’s, and the most talking you ever do is when driving in the car.
You are a grandparent who would like to do more with your grandchild, but you don’t know how you might make your time together more meaningful.
Parenting Challenges Today
No matter your income or educational background, being a parent isn’t the same as it was in the past. And being a child isn’t the same either. Today’s schools are often competitive and dominated by tests. A wealth of new information about the brain is telling us that the experiences we provide our young children shape their
intelligence. Should you be teaching your child French at age 4? Signing your child up for another class? You know too much TV isn’t good for children, but what do you do after you turn off the TV? Is this what raising children is all about? Isn’t having kids supposed to be more fun than this?
In our experiences of being parents and in working with children and families, we meet parents with questions like these all the time. We also see parents everyday who love their children and want the best for them but who may not be making the best choices about experiences for their children or spending their limited time together in the best ways.
In our work as educators and in our own parenting experiences, we have come to recognize that in-depth engagement in learning reaps enormous rewards for the growth of children’s knowledge and skills.We have also found that those times when we are involved in projects with our children—when we are exploring, learning, and talking about real things of great interest to our children (both our own and those in our care)—to be immensely satisfying to us as adults.
Yet increasingly the times when children are truly engaged in learning and discovering are not occurring at all, or they are occurring when the child is with adults outside the home. For some families, learning has become something that happens at school or in a class or with “professionals.” Classes, such as museum classes, can be helpful to children when there are specific skills and knowledge that they are ready and wanting to learn. However, there are many other productive ways for children, especially young children, to learn. For many parents today, the parenting role has become custodial: dress and feed them, transport them, and become their cheerleader. Although these tasks are necessary and beneficial, they are not all that parenting can be.
As parents, sharing project work with our children has enabled us to meet many parenting challenges. Through project work we have had something meaningful to talk about with our children. We have a vehicle to teach them what we value and at the same time create strong bonds between us.
What Is a Project?
A project is an in-depth investigation of a topic that is interesting to children. In families, projects are what children are “in to”—what gets them excited and what they like to talk about. Projects involve hands-on investigation, finding the answers to questions, reading about the topic (or being read to), visiting sites or places, and talking to other people (adults and children) who know something about the topic.
Projects also involve documentation—collecting information and preserving the experience by writing about it, taking photographs, or videotaping. As parents, we have experienced projects with our children. One of us, Judy, has vivid memories of the summer of the caterpillars, when her children were immersed in collecting, studying, and observing the metamorphosis of a number of caterpillars. The project involved trips to the library, studying plants and leaves, and learning about how to care for the caterpillars.
Sometimes these projects become lifelong pursuits and hobbies. They become part of the family tradition. There is the “band family” whose interest in music blossomed into the whole family’s involvement and support of music and probably— we don’t know yet—into a career in music for a child. There is the “baseball stadium” family whose interest in stadiums turned into a project to “collect” major league stadiums by visiting them on summer vacations. In the Helm family, the girls developed a strong interest in pioneers, including pioneer clothes and toys. As they became readers this interest was fueled by the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. When a discussion began on where to go on vacation, they wanted to see the Wilder historical sites. A few years later, as the interest continued, the whole family participated in a re-creation of the Oregon Trail experience where everyone learned about the history of the West as well as how to churn butter and make pioneer crafts. Not all projects are extensive investigations. Some projects are short-lived, lasting only a week or so. One of the joys of childhood should be the opportunity and time to explore many interests and experiment with learning about different areas of knowledge and different skills. In this way children learn what interests them and what they are good at doing. This “sampling process” provides a depth of self understanding that enables informed selection of subjects to study in high school and eventually to career choices that promise to be satisfying. One of Judy’s daughters had an intense but short-lived interest in rockets. However, her other daughter’s interest in early America became a quilting project that turned into a lifelong interest, bonding grandmother and grandchild.
What Is the Project Approach?
The project approach is a method of investigating a topic by a group of children. It is an “approach” to teaching. Interest in the project approach as a teaching method has increased because the learning that occurs during projects is consistent with what we know about brain development.
The project approach provides a structure for teachers to follow when guiding children’s project work. About 15 years ago, Dr. Lilian Katz, from the University of Illinois, and Dr. Sylvia Chard, from the University of Alberta, developed the steps of the project approach. It is not a new way to learn. The project approach has been around for a very long time. You may have heard of other kinds of project work that teachers use such as “service learning,” which involves children in community projects, or problem-based learning (often referred to as PBL). These methods are usually used with older children. In fact, PBL and case studies are used by many medical schools and especially by the Harvard School of Business.
A major characteristic of project work is the nature of children’s involvement in the process. We talk about project learning as being engaging and meaningful. You can tell that learning is engaging when children are intensely interested in an experience and show enthusiasm for a project. They ask questions and discuss what they are learning, revealing a high level of knowledge for their age. Children come to project work eagerly and work long and hard. They often talk about the topic when they are not working on the project. You can see that learning is meaningful when children connect what they are learning to other facts they already know;
incorporate new skills such as reading, writing, or using numbers in their study of structure of the project approach, they then take the techniques (such as how to help children ask questions or how to help children do observation drawing) and integrate them into the rest of their teaching. In the same way, we expect that once you know how to follow the structure of the project approach, you will branch out and use bits and pieces of the project approach throughout your interactions with your child. By doing projects with your child, you will get ideas and develop skills to support learning in a variety of ways throughout your family life.
What Happens in Project Work?
CHILDREN STUDY A TOPIC OF INTEREST
In project work children study a topic of interest for a long time. The topic comes from the children’s interests. In the Helm family Caterpillar Project, for example, the children found a caterpillar in the yard and were curious about it. Their interest and questions stimulated discussion and exploration by the whole family, and soon caterpillars were a big part of their lives that summer. Even very young children develop interests and preferences.
When children are involved in a topic, they learn a great deal about it, often at a level higher than many adults would expect for their age. Sometimes children will develop knowledge and skills that surpass those of adults. We have all had the experience of being awed by the enormous amount of knowledge a child might
have about something of great interest to him, such as dinosaurs or cars.
CHILDREN LEARN HOW TO ANSWER THEIR OWN QUESTIONS
In projects children learn to use a variety of ways to find answers to questions, a skill that will be very helpful in later life. The adult does not become the “teacher” of the children but a learner with the children. After children have experienced several projects, they will have many ideas about how to learn and will make their own plans with an adult’s help.
Some of the ways children learn to find answers to questions include traditional resources like books and talking with “experts”—adults or sometimes older children who know a great deal about the topic. Other ways may be new to you, such as helping children do investigations on field-site visits. For example, a child who is very interested in cars might be taken on a trip to a car dealership where the parent and child look at many cars and compare their features. The children plan questions to ask adults and have specific tasks for the trip. Children make field notes and sketch and draw on-site. In a project on sewing, a trip was made to the fabric store to investigate fabrics.
When children come home from the field-site visit, they may want to make models, build structures, or create play environments using what they have learned. The play environments help them sort out what they are learning. For example, the visit to the auto dealership might result in the child using blocks and toy cars
to create her own dealership and garage where she can pretend to play the role of salesperson or mechanic. One of Judy’s children made an apple orchard out of blocks, toy cars, and construction paper after a visit to an apple orchard. Project work often results in a trip to the library. In the Caterpillar Project, the children checked books out of the library. They visited the caterpillar exhibit at a nature center and talked with the park ranger about how to hatch caterpillars. They also got a great deal of help from neighbors who had hatched caterpillars in the past. Notes were kept on the progress of the caterpillars, and the children made their own caterpillar book. This project provided significant motivation for the children to use “school skills,” such as reading and writing, and to practice these skills in a meaningful way.
Project work can also be carried out with toddlers. They will not be able to ask questions, but an adult can observe what a toddler finds most interesting. A toddler may stop and look closely at something on a walk (such as a leaf), or carry something around (such as boxes or a ball) or become excited when she sees something (like a train).
If a toddler sees photos or pictures of trains in a book, she may point to them and use first words. These are signs of interest. The adult may then respond by providing more experiences related to the topic, such as taking the child to watch a train go by, checking train books out of the library, or providing a toy train to
play with. When a large box is introduced, the toddler may pretend it is a train and want to play in it. During the pretend play, many new “train words” will be used, and the playing will show, or represent, what the toddler has learned about the topic.
CHILDREN SOLVE PROBLEMS
Another feature of project work is that children do their own problem solving, with adults helping to structure problems and assisting in finding solutions and resources. For example, in the Caterpillar Project, Judy asked the question, “What should we feed the caterpillar?” This led to the children thinking about how they could find a solution to that problem. For young children, much of the problem solving occurs as they try to “represent” their learning—through making models, building structures, or creating play environments.
CHILDREN RECORD THEIR LEARNING
Drawing and sketching are also features unique to project work. Children draw what they are seeing (even 3-year-olds draw). The purpose of drawing is not to create artists but to develop a way of looking closely at items and artifacts. When a child draws a caterpillar, he must observe very closely and notice the shapes, how parts connect, and what is different about different caterpillars. In project work, we talk about “drawing to learn.” When children draw and then a few weeks later draw the same thing again, we see that the drawings reveal how much children have learned during the project. Other ways that children record their learning are project books, murals, artwork, constructions, and journals.
Toddlers are unlikely to do much drawing, although some do begin at this age. However, as in the train example above, toddlers do show their understanding through pretend play and through learning words related to the project. By listening carefully, the adult can make a list of “train words” that the toddler understands by observing the toddler’s actions. For example, if the adult says, “Where is the caboose?” and the child finds the caboose, she shows that she knows the name of that train car. Another list can be made of the words that the child says. Writing down the date when a toddler appears to understand a word and the date when the toddler says the word is an easy and fun way to capture the toddler’s growth in understanding.
CHILDREN COMPLETE THE PROJECT
In classrooms where the project approach is used, there is a culminating phase when the project comes to a close. In family projects, the topic is more likely to taper off. We feel it is important for a child to “finish off ” projects so that there is a sense of closure and accomplishment and so the child can see himself as a competent learner. This helps the child develop a self-image of competence and confidence.
It is a healthy way for children to develop self-esteem. For example, making a book about caterpillars summarized what the Helm children had learned about them. The book was then taken to school, shared with grandparents, and added to their bookshelf. Since a project may evolve into a lifelong interest, we encourage you to periodically make opportunities for children to stop, reflect, and share what they have learned.
How Will Project Work Benefit My Child?
YOUR CHILD WILL HAVE A REASON TO PRACTICE ACADEMIC SKILLS
Project work provides meaningful learning experiences for children; that is, it contributes to their intellectual development and has a long-term positive effect on attitudes and beliefs about learning. Project work provides a context and a reason for your child to develop academic skills such as reading, writing, using numbers, and thinking scientifically. Because your child is so interested in learning more about the topic of the project, he begins to see reading, writing, and arithmetic as valuable skills.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are all skills that require frequent practice to perfect. Research has shown that the more children read, the better they read. The same applies to math. You may have had the experience of becoming “rusty” in using certain math skills when you haven’t used them for a period of time.
Although we are not saying that project work will provide all the reading, writing, and arithmetic practice that children need, especially in the primary grades, it certainly goes a long way toward providing a positive and enjoyable way to get that practice done. Project work supplies motivation for your child to sound out words,
to get meaning from words in a book, or to use numbers to solve problems. Instead of the drudgery of drills and worksheets, your child practices these skills in the process of using them as tools. This is similar to the role that these skills play in our adult lives.
YOUR CHILD WILL DEVELOP DISPOSITIONS TOWARD LEARNING
Children are born with dispositions to be curious and deeply engaged in making the best sense they can of their experiences. One of the important features of good project work is the support of these dispositions (or attitudes) because children are encouraged to take initiative and accept responsibility for what is accomplished.We talk a lot about the development of dispositions in project work (such as a positive
attitude toward reading) because we feel that they are important to lifelong attitudes toward learning and have a significant effect on children’s motivation to achieve, to continue to learn, and to seek higher education.
Although you often cannot control the experiences your child has in classrooms, you can control the experiences that she has in your home. Dr. Lilian Katz maintains that young children have powerful inborn intellectual dispositions—to make sense of experience, to learn, to analyze, theorize, hypothesize, make predictions, and so forth. In the primary grades, children’s experiences in school sometimes stress learning a single right answer, extensive drill and practice, and memorization. Ironically, when children reach middle school and high school, they are introduced to research and project work that requires them to analyze, theorize, and hypothesize. Teachers often struggle to reawaken these dispositions in older students.
It is these intellectual dispositions that we encourage you to support within your home, especially if this support is lacking from your child’s educational experiences.
Intellectual dispositions are stronger in some children than in others. The development of dispositions is very individual. It is difficult for teachers to know the dispositions of each of the 20 or so children in her classroom. It behooves us as parents to know our children and support these vital dispositions.
YOUR CHILD WILL DEVELOP SELF-ESTEEM
Along with the development of your child’s intellectual dispositions is the importance of the development of a sense of competence and self-esteem. The development of self-esteem is important to your child’s success in school and in life. We all know adults who have skills and knowledge that they do not use or opportunities
that they have missed in education or in their careers because they lacked self confidence.
Many parents are concerned about their child’s self-esteem because studies have shown it is related to resistance to alcohol and substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and gangs in the teen years. Yet the development of self-esteem does not come from constantly telling your child how special he is. A child quickly figures out that you are his parent and of course you think he is special. Self-esteem comes from the development of competence and resiliency, the confidence that a child has in his own skills and abilities to overcome adversity and to do well. Project work provides opportunities for your child to build that confidence.
YOUR CHILD WILL LEARN DEMOCRATIC VALUES
Children who do project work also develop a healthy appreciation for the knowledge and skills of a variety of adults and what they contribute to our society. For example, as your child learns how the car mechanic keeps people’s cars running or how the grocery store manager makes sure that food is on the shelves for customers to buy, he begins to understand the concept of having a job and contributing to the welfare of
others. Appreciation and understanding of the value of others is a basic understanding that your child needs to function well in a democracy.
YOUR CHILD WILL GROW IN WONDER
In addition to all the other benefits, we believe that projects can enable children to strengthen their capacity to wonder—to experience awe and appreciation—especially of our natural world. In our busy lifestyle, children are seldom given time to just sit, appreciate, and wonder about what is around them. When children’s lives are constantly programmed and they are involved in activities where they primarily receive what others decide they should receive, they do not have opportunities to contemplate, to find joy in using their minds, or to think about complex topics such as life, growth, and death—the cycles of the world. As educators who have experienced many projects with children, we have continued to be inspired by the
joy and the complex thoughts that children reveal when they “discover” such miracles as the emergence of a plant from a tiny seed, or an egg hatching, or a machine that comes to life and moves. In project work, your child can have experiences that will connect her to her world and the people in it in more meaningful ways than just learning knowledge or developing skills. Although as educators we tend to talk about benefits of project work as growth in knowledge and skills, as parents we want to also emphasize what we have observed in our own children—the development of a heightened awareness, a connectedness to the world, almost a child spirituality that becomes a foundation of resilience as our children mature and face some of life’s major challenges.
