A DUAL EXPERIENCE IN LEARNING

This fall a program was instigated in the ceramics
studio in the Faculty of Education at U.B.C. The proj-
ect revolves around the concept of learning through
relationships. The point of departure of the program
is ceramics and the key participants are two specific
groups of students. One group consists of volunteer
students from the ceramics major in art education. The
second group is made up of twenty-two boys and girls
ages 10-15 all of whom have some difficulty in learning.

The project arose through concerns for: the small
amount of actual time which student teachers get to
work with children in their 4 or 5 year training program,
for the lack of opportunity for these students to develop
and experiment with their own independent approaches to
teaching, without fear of failure through final marks,
and the lack of attention paid to the concept of learn-
ing one subject in relationship to another.

This particular group of children was selected to
satisfy a curiosity about the questions: Why some chil-
dren are slow to learn? Is it possible to stimulate a
desire to learn within these children through a situ-
ation which is activity oriented and which uses "real"
equipment?

And so we have a situation which includes; one
well-equipped studio, 22 children, and x number of vol-
unteer university students, coupled with a purpose to
stimulate a desire to learn by teaching through relation-
ships using ceramics with all its diversity as the
springboard of operation.

Learning in this experience occurs for the student
teacher as well as the child and it takes place through
both groups of individuals choosing their activity for
participation. Teaching occurs on a one to one basis
or in small groups with the various children teaming up
with the older students who happen to be doling the ac-

tivity which is of most interest to that particular