How do Children Think and Interact?

Evelyn Oluchukwu
2 min readAug 5, 2020

It is our function as educators to delve deep into the varying ways in which children think and find new ways of reaching children with learning content. In this century, the usual teaching methods we are trained to use as teachers will not suffice.

We are saddled with a unique challenge. The challenge of teaching children born with technology. Our class is a pack of digital natives leads by digital migrants. This is particularly unique in every way, and completely different from what our instructors had in mind while we were in training.
Chalk and talk will no longer survive. And literally, we no longer use chalk in our classes. But hey, the good old talk remains valid to date.
We as teachers must talk, demonstrate, and yet, talk some more. Whether it is talking in the name of direct instruction, or talking through a video camera in a remote classroom, or developing content for an e-learning platform somewhere in Nigeria, the talking factor in education has come to stay.
You must have noticed that an unprecedented number of two-year-olds have gained mastery of the use of an android phone. More children, now say hello as their first word, even before they ever learn to say Mama, and while full-grown adults need an engineer to perform a simple task, more children are becoming vast in uninstalling and installing software on computers not to mention developing games and writing codes.
In other to reach kids with learning content, we need to step into their world and reach them within their comfort zone.
Bundling a typical Nigerian child to school every morning is unavoidably necessary because it instills in the child a huge sense of discipline. But we can not limit their learning to those four walls if the child is not interested in learning that way.
We should find more remote ways to teach our children on a daily basis with the education they really do deserve and as we creatively do this, we will experience accelerated growth in the academic performance and knowledge base of our children.
Welcome to the birth of remote learning and e-learning websites for Nigerian children.

--

--

Evelyn Oluchukwu

Agile Scrum Product Owner, Former Full Stack Developer, 16' Global Champion at UN Women's Empower Women