Lights On Learning is all about finding out what it is that switches on our lights and then having the opportunity to immerse ourselves in learning through our strengths, talents and passions.
What would we jump out of bed, every morning, to get up and do? When we discover our passion and start understanding our purpose then everything else makes sense!
We believe it is never too young to start and actually the younger we are the more in-tune we are with our switch.
So the first stage, which really determines how and where we head through our 5 Step System, is to Locate the Switch. There are three key steps in this first stage.
1
Creating A Lights On Learning Culture
2
Defining Lights On
3
The Learning Carousel
Our aim with creating a Lights On Culture is to put our children into the driving seat of their own learning adventure and help them discover their USP (Unique Success Point) so that they can learn through their strengths and start reaching out towards their edges.
So to create this culture there are some things that are essential. You need to:
1
Support the full range of emotions
2
Build up intrinsic motivation
3
Build in challenge
Support The Full Range Of Emotions
A major part of our approach is to develop the emotional intelligence of our learners. This, far more than their academic ability, is what we believe will hold them back from reaching their fullest potential. In my adult team I have seen it time and time again - those that can push through the failure go on to succeed and those that simply can't deal with what failure can feel like - being insecure and annoyed with themselves - they never get to reach their true potential.
Our approach is designed to push our learners to their edges of their ability so that they are building up resilience, grit and determination because they get experience of failing and they learn to recognise the emotions that come with that.
What all this means is you and your child will become frustrated or angry, or give up, have a paddy (that includes you as the adult!) and you both might put up a huge amount of resistance!
We've seen some amazingly quick transformations in children when we start to legitimise feeling frustrated or angry as a natural part of learning. They realise that it isn't something to avoid (because they are legitimate emotions) rather they need to get more understanding of how to deal with those feelings and turn the negative associations into positive outcomes.
Here are some immediate tips to get you started:
1
Start to reframe how you view failure.
2
Don't be fooled into thinking you want to avoid your lights going dim or off - crucial learning happens in this space.
3
Relearn what you think learning is - in our Lights On world it is not getting everything right but rather getting a huge amount wrong on route to success that really matters.
4
Mistakes are valuable BUT we need to learn from them and avoid making the same mistake twice.
5
Watch the following videos with your child to get you started.
Videos To Watch
Success nearly always follows failure. As John Legend says here we just often don't get to hear about it until the success comes about so it appears that talent naturally brings about success. Not so!
Big time fails lead to big time success. Failing over and over again in our lives will ultimately help us all succeed.
At some point even Shakespeare had to learn his ABCs! Trial and error makes our brain grow and this is learning.
So THE big take away from this lesson is to not ignore the emotions that we normally think of negative. It is not our role to help our children (in a Lights On Learning environment) to avoid being frustrated or angry but rather to empower them to make sense of these emotions and accept them as really important signals for us to look out for. If we feel them chances are we are about to LEARN!
Build Up Intrinsic Motivation
This is SO important and I can't stress it enough. The motivation to learn HAS to come from our children and not as a result of some external reward. Again this is where you may need to do some 'unlearning' and see your role as a Lights On mentor as being different to that of being mum or dad. You may have been through a whole range of 'reward' schemes to try to encourage sleeping through the night, sitting nicely at the table, or being kind to siblings! But when it comes to Lights On Learning no gold stars please!
So how do we encourage our children and build up that intrinsic motivation?
1
Finding that switch is the key. When we find our passion we get braver and take more risks because the outcome is important to us. We find more purpose in our learning.
2
Having time to explore, play and experiment. This enables your child to engage in a more trial and error approach to learning and also gives them more opportunity to lead their learning and experience autonomy. We'll go into detail in Module 3 about how to create enough structure to allow the freedom and creativity to flow without falling into the trap of becoming too hands on.
3
Working towards mastery. Tasting excellence that has come as a result of their own or collaborative efforts - not through overly facilitated achievements - is one of the most motivating rewards.
Rewards can actually be demotivating rather than motivating. Autonomy, mastery and purpose are the KEY motivating factors for higher level thinking. This highlights the power of Lights On Learning!
Build In Challenge
We see it time and time again that children give up when the going gets tough. They start to say they are bored. They develop avoidance tactics - they'll do anything to avoid being in the space where they feel, 'Aghhh - I don't know what I am doing!' So in a Lights On Learning culture as well as reframing failure, and what learning actually is, we also need to build in fun challenges where we are upfront about the fact that we won't know the answers.
1
Be blatant about embracing challenges as a family. What did you struggle with today? A simple question gets your child understanding you are interested in the things they found hard - not what they got right (where's the learning in what we got right?!).
2
Value and praise effort over outcome. As parents we can obsess over the end product. This is driven by an education system that is 'test heavy'. So now you need to start to think about how the praise you give is a major factor in your child's resilience to learning. Are we setting them up to succeed or fail?
3
Get to grips with what mindset is all about and why it is so important. It all begins with listening to Carol Dweck!
Don't run from your mistakes - embrace them as a natural part of learning. Accept the challenge and grow your mind!
We'll go into all of this in much more detail but hopefully this overview of what a Lights On culture entails will get you thinking in the right direction.
