Dr. Anamika
December , 2024

The idea for this blog came from my weekly Deep Reading Sessions with seven children aged between five and eleven. The conversations with these children revolve around articles published in the children’s newspapers, stories on the friendship between humans and artificial intelligence, and The Diary of Anne Frank. During these sessions, the children draw a concept from the readings and discuss their relevance and reflect on how these can be applied in life. My experience with these GenZ children is an eye-opener regarding how children learn. I am not citing any learning theory or academic research here to support my findings, as these are my preliminary reflections serving as food for thought for me and the teaching fraternity working with mixed-age group.

Children are often eager to share their personal experiences with their peers and the facilitator. The young children in the group also feel inspired and proactively share their experiences. Sometimes, even devise an experience very similar to the one shared by older members. They are aware of the fact that the shared experience has some element of reality and some figment of imagination. For instance, a child shared that her mother teaches Robotics, and they have a small robot at her house. Inspired by this anecdote, another child shared that in his school, there are many robots, including a robot team that plays basketball with them. The way the child narrated the whole experience sounded so surreal. Through this exercise, the child is processing and making sense of peers’ experiences by putting himself in a similar situation.

I strongly believe that this is a valuable learning opportunity for young learners. This allows them to make sense of their own and others’ experiences while developing multiple competencies, such as compelling communication and engaging storytelling skills. This practice also helps build confidence in young learners, and a facilitator should make the most of such opportunities by encouraging learners to think critically, and reflect on each other’s experiences, and approach every interaction with an open, non-judgmental attitude.