day fifty-four: create learning hooks for your children by explaining expectations

“It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts…it is to teach them to think…” Robert Hutchins




Yesterday I introduced the concept of Explaining Expectations. Today I would like to take those thoughts further by describing what Ray and I call “learning hooks.” We like to think of a child’s “moral mastery” as a wall filled with hooks. These hooks are just waiting to have lessons “hooked” onto them. Every time we teach a child about godly character, proper behavior, appropriate treatment of others, etc., we are giving the child more information to attach to his learning hooks. The more times he encounters lessons about those things, the more his “moral wall” is filled—and the more character learning takes place.


The beauty of learning hooks is that the more hooks that are created—or the more information and experiences that are “hooked” onto the hooks—the more lessons the child has to refer to in future situations. Repetition is a strong teaching tool—but with learning hooks, it isn’t only repetition that is aiding the moral lessons, but the fact that you keep building on the concepts with real life applications and experiences that can be attached to hooks that were created in previous lessons.


For example, many years ago we were on our way to visit Ray’s grandparents who lived in an assisted living apartment. On the way, we talked to the children about how Grandma and Grandpa Rager are not used to having children around and their house is not arranged for children. We reminded them that they should not run or be rowdy because it could cause one of their grandparents to fall, etc. We told them that they should play quiet activities, like the things they brought in their “busy bags.”


Now, they all had been there before, so we were just hooking new lessons onto an old hook. They already had a hook on their moral wall entitled, “Behavior when around elderly.” Anything we explained or taught them further about this, they could simply attach to that hook that was already in place on their moral wall since they had been trained over and over not to run when elderly people, handicapped individuals, or small children are around. They can easily fall, so we should walk carefully around them. Of course, we reminded them of those past lessons—and related tonight’s lessons to the learning hook that they already had in place concerning appropriate behavior in situations involving elderly.


A few days later, we were on our way to our cell group when we heard Joshua (then eleven) explaining to the girls that tonight they should play quiet activities because the couple hosting the meeting was elderly. Then he went on to say those words we love to hear—the ones that tell us that the learning hooks are having things attached to them and doing their job: “Remember, this is just like the other night when we were at Grandma and Grandpa Rager’s. They are not used to having children around just like Grandma and Grandpa, so we shouldn’t be rowdy or run around.” Gotta love those learning hooks!


Learning hooks work in many other teaching situations, of course. Academically, anytime we say to our children, “This is just like when you learned….” we are relating what they are learning now to something that is already on their learning wall. (This is one reason it is important to explain concepts in more than one way whenever possible.) We are attaching more experiences and scenarios to the hooks they have in place. Explaining expectations over and over again—with real life scenarios and applications—is a great way to create and add to learning hooks for our children’s moral, character, and academic development.