The Wonder Approach

Children of the last twenty years have grown up in an increasingly frenzied and demanding environment, so that on one hand education has been rendered more complicated and on the other, the essentials have been lost from view. In order to ensure their future success, we feel that we must fill our children's schedules with endless activities that cause leisure, spontaneous activity, and the experience of nature, beauty and silence, to fade out of their lives. Childhood has often become a veritable race toward adulthood, which distances children more and more from the natural laws of childhood. A constant stream of loud and flashy stimuli disturbs the only true and sustainable learning that exists in them: that of calmly and quietly discovering the world for themselves and at their own pace, with a sense of wonder that goes beyond mere curiosity for the unknown or interest in novelty. According to the Wonder Approach, learning is a wondrous journey guided by a deep reflection on what the natural laws of childhood require: respect for children's innocence, their pace and rhythms, their sense of mystery, and their thirst for beauty. "The Wonder Approach to Learning is a most informed and intelligent article on learning." Psychology Today About the author: Catherine L