Durrant – scaffolding

Scaffolding refers to a process through which we teach children, by evaluating where they are right now in their understanding, what the next step in their understanding would be, and then giving them the information and support they need to get from where they are to that next step, not doing it for them, but giving them the information they need to gain that skill.  

So then they move to the next level of understanding and skill. And then once they’re there, we give them the information and support they need to get to the next level. So we might be modeling, we might be talking and explaining, we might be helping, we might be doing going part way and then help helping them finish the rest of it.   

You know, I’ll give another example of when my son was in school in another country, he learned how to sew, and he was about six years old. And he came back with a dragon that was as tall as I am. Now of course he didn’t sew every stitch in that dragon there’s no way he could have done that. But what the teachers did was use that project to teach them little by little. So the first step was let’s figure out how you choose the fabric you’re going to use. So they go the store and they talk about it all, and talk about how the different fabrics, you know, behave, and how they’ll feel.  And then they teach them how to thread a needle by doing it over and over again, and helping him find it, and giving him, you know, a needle with a great big hole that’ll help him do that easily so that he gets the feel of it and understands the action. Then they show him how to make a stitch, and then he starts to learn to make stitches. And he the first ones aren’t very good, but they give him advice along the way, and model and model, and he learns and learns, and he gets better and better and better.  

And that’s really what scaffolding is. It’s instead of saying do it this way, and then when the child doesn’t succeed, saying well that was a stupid thing to do, or go to your room, or well, you know, do it’ll you get it right, that’s not helping the child. That’s not helping them build their skills in any way, but saying well let’s see what happened here, you know, what did you try? Okay, well maybe what if you try it this way? Try it this way and see what happens. Then the child is learning.  

First of all, they’re learning that they cannot do it correctly and it’s okay, they’re learning that they can come to you for more information and support, and they’re going to actually acquire skill, because you’re helping them to become problem solvers. So when they become parents, maybe they’ll be better problem solvers too, because they’ll say well that didn’t work very well, that didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, what happened here, what did I try, what else could I try, what might work better, why didn’t that work, what’s – what’s going on?  

So whether you’re sewing, or whether you’re cooking, or whether you’re building a bridge, or whether you’re building a house, or whether you’re parenting a child, it’s all the same process of just thinking okay, well why – what’s going wrong here, why are we not getting where we want to go, what else could we try, let’s try that and see how that works for us.