A KAWA on Homeschooling

Since March 2020, many things in the world have been different. Learning, in particular, has changed.

FIGHTING LEARNING FATIGUE AT HOME WITH FUN AND COMPETENCE

"A regular school operation is not conceivable until well into the next school year, until then..." Federal Minister of Education Anja Karliczek on April 30, 2020. Apparently, there is no end in sight. New regulations for dealing with the virus are fluttering into German schools daily. School administrators are desperate. So, it's time to continue improvising, to continue living with unbearable conditions. Colleagues are working at their limits, some in school, others, more vulnerable, from home. Weaknesses in the education system are becoming apparent. It's no secret - Corona has us firmly in its grip. Especially the education system. Here, weaknesses are revealing themselves earlier and more clearly than expected - our students were generally only insufficiently prepared for independent learning. Learning without structure - a horror for all involved. Parents are desperate, students are frustrated, and even children and young people who previously preferred to see school from the outside are now longing for schools to reopen. They miss social contacts. Until this still unknown date, one thing is on the agenda for which no one was trained: homeschooling, until recently a situation in Germany that was punishable by law. No one is prepared for such a situation: The parents, usually burdened with home office or/and additional dramatic worries (short-time work allowance, fear of losing their livelihood), struggle with their kids over the only computer in the household and the internet quota, if they still have one. In addition, perhaps the three children come from different schools, all of whom handle homeschooling differently. Get to grips with all the subject areas of the specialist teachers? Impossible! Family stress is pre-programmed. The students are not equipped with brilliant learning methods, let alone an independent learning strategy. Even most university students don't manage that. There are enough students who have the ambition not to fall behind and meticulously complete all their teachers' tasks. Of course, they usually need twice as long as they would have in school. There, there is the teacher who patiently explains everything again. Questions of understanding therefore go to the parents or older siblings, who are usually stressed themselves or simply overwhelmed. The teachers are also insecure. They often assign more rather than less, thereby putting additional learning stress on the students. Since not all students have school books at home, worksheets are created. A mother reported: Her son received 8 (!) full worksheets for English for the next two days yesterday, and the math teacher was hardly behind with 6 task sheets compared to the English teacher. Not an isolated case. The main problem and solutions The main problem for all families is the lack of a regulated daily routine. Parents are well advised to bring structure into the daily routine: Clear goals, clear division of tasks with a sense of proportion, clear times for learning. When it comes to learning times, families can now even use the circumstance to plan a time together with the children when they want to learn. Is your child an early riser or more of a night owl? This can be taken into account. The breaks (important! - design active breaks with gymnastics or sports) can also be individually regulated. For goal planning, brain-friendly Mindmap weekly and daily planners are suitable, originally intended for adults, but easily adaptable for children and young people. Important: Do not cross out every completed task in the Mindmap, but highlight it with a marker. Concentrate on the positive! Transfer uncompleted tasks to the next day. Particularly successful learning achievements are transferred to the weekly planner for the following week. It thus takes on the function of a happiness diary to keep spirits high and frustration low. For all families who want to learn with pleasure and need help, the Akademie für Lernmethoden has created a Homeschooling TV channel, where a video is posted daily since the beginning of school closures. Our solution: Homeschooling TV channel for "learning to learn"   Now also available as a package in color, with a black and white template and an empty template for self-design.  

What do KAWA and KAGA actually mean?

KAWA according to Birkenbihl is an acronym and stands for: Kreative Ausbeute von Wort-Assoziationen (Creative Exploitation of Word Associations). But KAWA is easier to remember. Hence the name. KAWAs can be made on any topic that interests you.

How does a KAWA work and why is this technique so effective?

First, you write the topic in the center in large letters. By the way, I always use the sheet horizontally for this. In our Mindmap template ring binder, KAWAs are drawn on the left white page. Now you let your thoughts wander and consider what comes to mind about the term and what is important to write down. The difficulty here: What is written down must begin with one of the letters in the center. The smaller the term, the fewer letters you have available and the more you have to think. Here, it is the lack of letters that makes you think more intensively about a topic than an ABC list would. The goal should be to find a suitable term for each letter. Suppose you want to create a KAWA about your best friend Eva, then you only have three letters available. But you can use them multiple times. Perhaps E stands for elegant, successful, eloquent, for V you find her trustworthy, crazy and in love, and for A you have associated silly and single. If your best friend had been named Hannelore, you would, of course, have had more letters available. I often write in KAWA form during meetings. This keeps me alert, no matter how unimportant or boring a meeting is. And you catch everything.