Most people would describe “traditional” teaching and learning with the image of the “sage on the stage” presenting well-planned facts and pre-digested information, handing over explanations, demonstrating skills and using other verbal, language-based strategies to transmit information and knowledge.  But the truth is, as far back as Socrates, there has been the point of view that students build knowledge from within and as a result of direct, hands on experiences in the world, experiences full of real problems to solve, and people to solve them with, including their peers, parents and teachers.  Many of the world’s leading educational thinkers, whether historical or contemporary, have written about and discussed this idea: John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, Howard Gardner, Lilian Katz, Donald Graves, David Hawkins—to name a few.

While adults can learn though these verbal strategies, when it comes to children, the general belief is that the younger the learner the more dependent the learning process is on direct, or hands-on, experience. This makes sense given the developing language system of the young child and also the extent of their experience in the world. So it would be difficult to merely describe what a sphere is to a toddler who has not seen, touched and handled one. But, it also depends on the kind of knowledge we want a child to acquire. Piaget, the renowned and highly influential Swiss Psychologist who shaped our understanding of young children’s learning and thinking, distinguished 3 kinds of knowledge. Physical knowledge is the knowledge of objects in the physical world—liquids, solids, sounds that objects make and can only be learned through direct experience. Mathematical knowledge starts also with direct experience-- knowledge of patterns, a sense of number (that 8 means a group of eight objects but they can be any objects in the world).  The third kind of knowledge is social and cultural—writing systems, language, social behavior. This knowledge requires members of the culture to learn but still is best learned in an authentic, active way. 

Recently, early childhood educators have started to talk about “minds-on” and “hearts-on” as an addition to “hands-on”. Minds-on is a reminder that our goal is not to have busy hands.  Busy hands are not enough—experiences and activities have to engage the mind by being meaningful and challenging as well as appropriate.   Hearts-on is the reminder that we all learn most and best when we are excited about the learning, and fully engaged emotionally.  Learning experts are returning to studies of motivation and engagement and questioning the wisdom of drilling children with boring content that squashes motivation. The ultimate great teaching and leaning task, or activity is all three: hands-on, minds-on and hearts-on!