Carol Krahn
phone:306.225.4355
carol@konos-canada.com
Western Rep: BC, AB, SK, MB, and Territories Diane Geerlinks
phone: 905.877.3515
diane@konos-canada.com
Eastern Rep: ON, PQ, NB, NS, PEI, NFLD
ABOUT KONOS: Experiential Learning
KONOS is a hands-on curriculum filled with concrete activities. The KONOS curriculum puts life into learning through experiential activities. KONOS has admittedly overemphasized experiential learning in hopes of bringing the educational "see-saw" back in balance. While we do subscribe to the necessity of seatwork and drillwork, we do not consider these to be the major emphasis of true education. In the KONOS curriculum you will note many multi-sensory, participatory activities.
These activities capture the child's attention and interest through real life experiences that engage all his senses. KONOS students watch a carpenter at work, touching the wood, hearing the tools, and smelling the scent of freshly cut lumber; they listen to real bird calls, they feels lamb's wool, they taste ethnic food and smell rising yeast. After they have built a simple model of the ear (under the dining table) that they can crawl through, they will know the parts of the ear. The Old Testament becomes real and meaningful as they make a model of the Tabernacle; historical characters come alive as stories are read and dramatized. By providing these real life experiences, information is given context so more is learned, more is understood and more is remembered and learning can be applies to real life instead of left in the classroom.
In response to the current problem of lowered academic proficiency, there is a trend in education that is a departure from traditional educational practice. The trend is toward introducing abstract learning concepts at an even earlier age. The assumption is that by introducing certain abstract concepts earlier they will be learned better. But earlier does not equal better. Head Start and other pilot projects have demonstrated this. Children have not become better readers by introducing the alphabet earlier, have not used mathematics better by introducing drill cards earlier, and have not become better writers by completing language workbooks earlier.
While agreeing that older children today are less proficient in abstract skills than in previous years, the KONOS solution to this problem is different. We choose to raise the age of abstract skill development instead of lowering it and to use these earlier years to provide more concrete, real-life, hands-on, multi-sensory experiences. Providing concrete experiences with much manipulation of tangible objects over a prolonged time in a real environment is the only demonstrated way to develop abstract skills.
