Movement is part of learning!

June 21, 2013 9:00 pm  •  By Claudia Quigg – For the Herald & Review

You might expect bedlam in a circumstance like this one: Under a tent set up on an asphalt parking lot, more than 200 very young children and their parents are gathered. These bright-eyed kids can hardly contain their excitement about seeing so many others on this fine Saturday morning.

But onto the stage walks Mr. Dave with his Space Cadets, and from that moment on, he has the whole audience eating from the palm of his hand.

How does he manage this mass of energy? Here’s how: He encourages them to do what they want — and need — to do. He engages their attention without a single lapse for an hour of shaking, stomping, clapping, wiggling and dancing. And the glow of discovery on the children’s faces tells the whole story.

During the early years of their lives, children simply must move in order to learn all they need to know. Asking children younger than 5 to sit still and be quiet is like asking a bird not to fly or a fish not to swim.

And so along comes a performer like Dave Hamilton who has learned the secret of getting kids into music, using their natural inclination rather than fighting against it. At his concerts, kids are expected to be up and moving so much of the time that when he lowers his voice for the occasional quieter moment, they hunker right down with him.

While adults learn how to be engaged with the world through symbolic experiences, such as reading or working on the computer, young children learn through their senses. And in order to fully be fully engaged, they use their whole bodies.

Their need to run and play is not a problem to be solved, but rather a solution to the challenge they face of figuring out how the world works. Honoring this learning style leads us to find meaningful opportunities for active learning.

At the end of the recent Mr. Dave concert at Baby TALK, he invited every child to come up and give him a high-five. Beginning with the first child, he counted loudly, “One!” Then with each subsequent leaping hand clap, the kids around him joined in spontaneously, “Two!,” “Three!” and on and on. As I walked away, I heard “17!”

Well-meaning folks who have learned about the importance of early experiences for preparing children for school success have unfortunately assumed that the best way to teach little children is to treat them like older ones. Some preschools have replaced blocks and easels for workbooks and pencils used by little ones sitting at tables and chairs too much of the time.

When their better natures rise up in them and propel them out of their chairs, knowing they need to move to learn, these little ones come to be known as behavior problems. Their success in school is doubted already, even as toddlers.

I agree that young children need to begin learning respectful behavior, but impulse control is a challenge in and of itself. When a child is working on controlling his impulses, he is less likely to be learning other skills and concepts at the same time.

Instead, when children have something really important to learn, like how seeds sprout and grow into plants or how a turtle swims in his bowl, they are not thinking about keeping their arms and legs still.

But along come masters like Mr. Dave to show us what we intuitively know already: Kids are born to learn, and ready to commit their whole bodies to the task.

Claudia Quigg is founder and executive director of Baby TALK: www.babytalk.org. Write to her atcquigg@babytalk.org.