A Growing Love of Learning
A Growing Love of Learning
Beginning School students are ages 3-5. They love to learn facts and they have amazing questions. I am sharing just a few quotes that I heard over the past few days:
“Did you know that there are more than 400 species of sharks? That’s A LOT of species!”
“Did you know that there are more than 400 species of sharks? That’s A LOT of species!”
After learning that minerals are in our food as part of a nutrition unit, this question arose from a child who has a rock collection: “If minerals are hard rocks, how do we eat them?”
“Some frogs in the rain forest are poisonous.”
“Twenty-five pennies can NOT fit in a quarter! Wait a minute; ARE there 25 pennies in there?”
“Eggs are strong AND delicate.”
While the entire Meadows campus is filled with wonder and learning, the Beginning School staff is sometimes tempted to say that our building is the happiest place on campus. Young children exhibit pure joy at discovery. They learn new information and process it like preschoolers, which often means they take things quite literally. They are learning to make connections between the things they already know and the new things they see. As any parent of a preschooler (or former preschooler) knows, they pepper the nearest adult with incessant questions.
The absolute love for learning we witness in early childhood extends well beyond the preschool years. To quote historian and author David McCullough from a commencement address he delivered at Boston College in 2008 in a speech he titled The Love of Learning:
“Facts alone are never enough. Facts rarely if ever have any soul. In writing or trying to understand history one may have all manner of ‘data’ and miss the point. One can have all the facts and miss the truth. It can be like the old piano teacher’s lament to her student, ‘I hear all the notes, but I hear no music.’”
While our young students are figuring out how all the notes fit together, we never let them stop hearing the music. They even have the excitement to compose their own music. Love of learning is an important core value at The Meadows. I have been privileged to witness this every day over my many years at the school. I have also been privileged to witness the continuation of the love of learning in my home as the parent of a TMS student and a TMS alumnus. The seeds planted here are special and the true privilege is to watch them grow.
While the entire Meadows campus is filled with wonder and learning, the Beginning School staff is sometimes tempted to say that our building is the happiest place on campus. Young children exhibit pure joy at discovery. They learn new information and process it like preschoolers, which often means they take things quite literally. They are learning to make connections between the things they already know and the new things they see. As any parent of a preschooler (or former preschooler) knows, they pepper the nearest adult with incessant questions.
The absolute love for learning we witness in early childhood extends well beyond the preschool years. To quote historian and author David McCullough from a commencement address he delivered at Boston College in 2008 in a speech he titled The Love of Learning:
“Facts alone are never enough. Facts rarely if ever have any soul. In writing or trying to understand history one may have all manner of ‘data’ and miss the point. One can have all the facts and miss the truth. It can be like the old piano teacher’s lament to her student, ‘I hear all the notes, but I hear no music.’”
While our young students are figuring out how all the notes fit together, we never let them stop hearing the music. They even have the excitement to compose their own music. Love of learning is an important core value at The Meadows. I have been privileged to witness this every day over my many years at the school. I have also been privileged to witness the continuation of the love of learning in my home as the parent of a TMS student and a TMS alumnus. The seeds planted here are special and the true privilege is to watch them grow.
Sara Carlson
Beginning School Director
- Beginning School
- Preschool