Children Learn From Each Other : The other day I had gone to a, nearby school to observe the teacher-children interaction. The children were working on a problem that the teacher had asked them to solve in their copybooks. The teacher walked around for a bit, stopping to ask individual children how they got a particular answer. Most children reacted by reaching for a rubber, to erase whatever they had done even if they were proceeding correctly. Haven't you come across such behaviour? What does it show? Doesn't it show that children lack confidence in their own ability to solve problems? This lack of confidence is there in adults also when faced with a figure of authority.
Children who lack confidence in their own ability to think will find it difficult to develop this ability later. So, it is necessary to tailor the learning environment towards building confidence in children.
But how can we do this? If you look closely at children playing in groups, you may get_ a clue. While playing together, children check each other are thinking.
Games and activities give children the opportunity to interact with each other in a non-threatening, autonomous and easy atmosphere. They give feedback to each other, in the form of an answer or a suggestion. A child takes such an input by another child as just another opinion to be viewed, examined, accepted or ignored.
On the other hand, the adult normally gives his opinion as the truth to be accepted without doubt or question. If the child appears to doubt it or looks uncertain, the adult repeats what he has said patiently, and then edgily and, finally, angrily? The eventual judgement is "You fool, you cannot understand it!"
The child, who is already dwarfed by the adult, accepts this opinion and starts losing confidence.
Thus, the non-threatening peer interaction is very important for children's learning.