Introduction

• 1 How do you feel when you do something new? Think of a recent experience when you faced this situation.

• 2 What challenges do inexperienced students face when coming to school? Consider some of the ideas below.

Why some students may not have much experience of education

Students learning in challenging circumstances may have little or no experience of education, either within the home or in formal institutions, such as schools. Reasons for this may be that:

• • they are from a low socio-economic background and are unable to afford the ▸direct costs or ▸opportunity costs of sending them to school;

• • their parents may not be literate and may have had no formal education themselves; as a result, they may therefore be unable (or feel they are unable) to help their children in practical terms;

• • because of their personal circumstances, their parents may lack the mental or emotional ability to support their children's education;

• • they are ▸refugees or have been ▸internally displaced, and schools are generally found in a fixed location;

• • even when children may have been to formal schools, the quality of education which they received may have been poor.

Depending on the situation, your students lack of formal education experience may actually have some advantages. For example, they may:

• • have a very positive attitude to education, seeing it as a privilege and not something they have to do;

• • have avoided some of the negative ‘conditioning’ aspects of formal education;

• • be more willing to involve themselves in more community- / environment-based learning activities (see ▸Chapters 18 and 28).