Self-discovery is indeed a key to an individual's educational success. Self-discovery is where education begins for everyone. The life of a child before he enters school is full of learning, from the beginning of the day to the end. Most of this learning is through exploration and experience. The child notices everything. In most cases this learning is encouraged by parental involvement as cheer leaders. There is pleasure in being praised, even for an infant. This pleasure serves as a motivator for the learner. It encourages further exploring and discovery.
What is this thing called "self-discovery? It is the ability of an individual to learn through personal experience and natural exploration, often motivated by curiosity. Self-discovery can also be prompted by an external teacher such as a parent, or school teacher. Through the active use of our senses, and the ability to make mental connections, learning takes place.
If the child is encouraged to experiment, and exercise his mental processes by asking questions and connecting facts, his learning will go far beyond what just a teacher can teach him. The child is actually teaching himself. Unlike learning from lecture and reading, experiential learning is retained at a very high rate.
Teachers can and should continue to encourage self-discovery. Unfortunately it is too often the case that self discovery decrease as external teaching begins to take place. By the time a student enters high school he depends on others to provide for him all the information he has to learn.
Educational professionals would do well to develop ways to maintain a high level of self-motivating educational materials and projects for the classroom that will encourage hands on learning and real life interaction experiences with the subject of the class. The more the child reaches out to learn and understand on his own, the more successful he will be once he is out of school in the work world.
How do we promote self-discovery? I remember a coworker walking by my desk one day, handing me a pen and saying, "Here, play around with this and see what you think." It was a calligraphy pen. It had a flat edge instead of a point. I had no idea what a calligraphy pen was for, but I played around with it and discovered it to be very unique. I discovered that writing with this pen produced a whole new world of lettering styles. It was fun, and motivated the creative person that is within me. I have now been doing calligraphy for about 30 years, and I truly love it.
As we place in front of students something they can interact with, or manipulate, or even just tap into their imaginations about, we will stimulate self-learning. Just as I learned calligraphy without a teacher, students will step up to the plate and figure out what they need to know. They will have pride in what they have learned. They will ask questions and be curious because they feel good about having some control of what and how they learn. By offering students opportunities to experiment and discover for themselves how things work, what they do, and ways to use them, we open a whole new world for them.
Curiosity results in learning. The more we can raise the curiosity level in children, the more we will allow them to learn by self-discovery. If we are careful, we can still motivate self-learning by not giving them all of the information. By asking questions that will require the child to discover by experience and experiment we encourage self-discovery.
Self discovery contributes to feelings of positive self-worth. When the child feels good about his experience, he will want to have another such experience. Teachers need to be pro-active and encourage questions from the students. Encourage further exploration by the students as they discover new information individually and in groups.
While a grading system helps the teachers and administrators know how well the student is doing, it tends to cause students to compare themselves with each other, leaving some to be discouraged. With the self-discovery method of teaching or learning, it might be best to have another system of rating, if only informal. Allow for more social interaction related to the project. Let the children rate each other's work based on positive criticism from peers. Students do need to learn how to contribute in a critically positive way to the education of their peers.
Social interaction in the classroom promotes self-discovery. Have students ask each other the questions that they were unable to answer as they worked through own projects. Allow them to realize that they can actually help each other to learn. This gives them a feeling of accomplishment, both as individuals and as a social group.
Learning goals stimulate self-learning. If learning is just for grades, students turn it off quickly. They need a reason to learn that will effect how they connect to the world around them.
"Every success grows from an idea that has been fertilized with thought, and nourished with hard work." We must both plant ideas into the students minds, and even better, allow for them to express their own ideas. Sprinkle those ideas with a few thought provoking questions, and open the workshop of their minds so they can bring their ideas to life, the result will be success.