Teaching can help learning when it genuinely supports and enables people to do what they want to do; when it helps them figure out whatever they're trying to figure out- but only when such an intervention is wanted, asked for, invited, or in some way accepted by the learner. Teaching that is uninvited, unwanted and unasked for does not help learning. It hinders it.

"Most of the time, children seem to be just playing, not learning."
There is no "just" about playing. Play is a child's most serious work. Of all the ways that children make sense of the world, the most important is through play and fantasy. Children's pretend play is rarely far removed from reality. Often children work through their life experiences, digesting them so to speak, through their play with dolls, stuffed animals, trucks, cars, blocks…etc. This is especially true when children undergo scary or traumatic experiences, such as the illness or death of someone close, a car accident, separation or divorce of their parents, etc.

But even in more mundane situations, when children play "store", "house", "cops & robbers" or "doctor", they are trying on roles and attempting to understand what it might be like to be such-and-such a person or to be in such-and-such a situation. This sort of play not only aids their learning and their ability to make sense of the world, it is their learning.

Fantasy play and role-playing allows children to take possession, in a very personal way, of the sometimes bewildering events which may be happening around them.

Much of the child's play takes the form of "Let's see what happens if I…" When a child tries to take a clock apart or perhaps a radio, a telephone, or some other device, he is trying to find out how things work.

The child may have no idea how to put these things back together again, but in playing with them, in "messing around," he or she may come to understand something about how the everyday objects function: "Oh, that's how the bell rings; that's what the knob does, that's how those gears work." Indeed, this sort of experimental play is a powerful means for learning.

As John Holt put it, "The process by which children turn experience into knowledge is exactly the same, point for point, as the process by which those whom we call scientists make scientific knowledge." So we don't need to teach children to be scientists; we just need to give them the chance to practise their craft. As it turns out, this is not a hard thing to do.

Further Reading

Ferreiro, Emilia and Ann Teberosky: "Literacy Before Schooling", Exeter, NJ: Heinemann Educational Books, 1982. Small children's self-directed excursions into the world of literacy.

Freire, Paulo Education for Critical Consciousness, New York: Continuum Publishing Co. 1973. The famous Brazilian educator describes his theory and methods.

Holt, John; "Learning all the Time", Addison Wesley, 1989. How small children begin to read, write, count, and investigate the world without being taught.

Piaget, Jean, et al.; "The Child's Conception of the World", London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929. Important for Piaget's discussion of methodology and its inherent limitations.

Stallibrass, Alison; "The Self-Respecting Child", Addison Wesley, 1989. An astute observer of children's free-form play chronicles their growth and development.