Greenfields Unique Study Methods and the Junior and Infant School
08 Sep 2020
Being aware of the powerful workability of the Study Technology* used by the School clearly gives us a responsibility for the correct application of it to our students. But how is this done with younger children? How is this technology applied to a 10 year old in, say, Maths?
There is not a teacher alive who has not seen a student giggling, doodling, messing about or staring into space. The truth is that every one of these phenomena and many more besides are caused by the misunderstood word (a word which is not understood or wrongly understood) Of course, the student will swear blind that he has none of these at all, that he or she has perfectly understood every word that he or she has just read, that he or she is “just a bit tired”, “did not sleep” or “that was only…”.
All of these excuses and comments can be quietly but thoroughly ignored. The golden rule is that unless the student is calmly and interestedly at his work, there is something he or she missed. Without fail, a misunderstood word or term is found to be at the bottom of the trouble.
Another action that we have found to be beneficial is word clearing on the most obvious words relating to school subjects. For example, a student continually loses one or more of their exercise books. About 10 minutes of the lesson could be lost while there is a search for these items.
The teacher then refers to a glossary of all the lesson names, plus key words in each subject of only about 12 words (including maths, comprehension, punctuation, grammar, fractions) in length. When the misunderstood word is found and cleared the result is: brightness, happiness, genuine smiles and a greatly increased understanding of and affinity for the subject. And the student no longer “misplaces” his or her materials!
Our first priority is the handling of the misunderstood word on the student as he or she goes along. Following that is the action of getting the child able to find words that are not understood fully on his or her own, and clear them himself or herself.
With these and other tools, Greenfields addresses a range of learning and experience that is far broader than any state-prescribed curriculum.