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Enrichment and Education
Upside-Down Teaching for Optimal Learning
Liz Uelmen
4/10/2011

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Education and Enrichment: Upside-Down Teaching for Optimal Learning
Sports, music and the other arts, and hobbies like crafts and woodworking
are considered by most to be beneficial and desirable for children to experience;
however, the potential for these activities to serve as instruments of formal
education has been largely overlooked. Decades of research into effective
educational practices have consistently revealed several important elements which
contribute to optimal learning, and enrichment activities contain these elements.
According to learning expert Lloyd Reiber, humans learn best when they believe
that what they are learning is valuable to them; furthermore, when a learning
experience is fun and engaging, it is more successful (1996, p. 12). People find the
highest degree of satisfaction when engaged in learning about what "…they enjoy
(and) find important" (Archambault, Eccles, & Vida, 2010). The very nature of
enrichment activities is that they are appealing, exciting and interesting; and people
who engage in them tend to want to know more about them. This makes
enrichment activities perfect vehicles for learning.
A few examples will give some idea of the potential for fun activities to
provide meaningful learning in the academic disciplines. In practice, one simply
analyses the processes involved in an activity, looking for the ways in which those
processes are related to, and involve the same content as, the subjects taught in
school. Once there is an awareness of this practice, and a desire to find ways to
apply it, the possibilities become endless.
Youth who enjoy sports can improve their skills by understanding the
mathematical and scientific principles behind them. The relationship of sports to

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math and science has inspired dozens if not hundreds of educational resources,
including Cameron Bauer's 2008 breakthrough textbook Algebra for Athletes, and
the San Francisco Exploratorium's exhibit on the science of baseball. Games in
general and even simple recreational play can be viewed as an educational
enrichment activity, too. Play science expert Dr. Stuart Brown says this about the
power of playing: "It shapes the brain…it fosters empathy and makes possible
complex social groups…play lies at the core of creativity and innovation" (Brown
& Vaughn, 2009, p. 5). Psychology lecturer and teacher educator Susan Engel
claims that play helps people "…acquire higher-order thinking skills, like
generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else’s
perspective and thinking of alternate solutions." (Engel, 2010).
Cooking and baking, besides being practical life skills, are popular activities
for enrichment. Not only does baking involve the use of fractions for measuring
ingredients, there are many scientific processes involved in transforming the
individual ingredients into the finished product. The Science of Cooking, by Paul
Barham, describes those processes in great detail (2001).
Many enrichment programs focus on teaching crafts of various types. A
2000 publication co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Office
of Educational Research and Improvement gives detailed descriptions of hundreds
of craft activities, explaining how they relate to literature, history, science and
math. Some activities even include studies in several subject areas, as exemplified
by the extensive quilting projects. Quilting is a craft that can encompass lessons in
history and the language arts as well as geometry. Another group of activities
described includes building a kaleidoscope; the mathematics involved with these
activities, "Cartesian coordinates, 2-D and 3-D geometry, measurement, symmetry,

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and volume," are all extremely challenging to teach and to learn, using the
traditional instructional model (Carter, C., Cohen, S., Keyes, M., Kusino, P., &
Lunsford, C., 2000. p. 9). Hands-on activities seat the higher math concepts in real-
life applications, making them far more comprehensible (Reiber, 1998, p. 12).
Any program that uses enrichment activities to improve academic
performance should include a major music component. Music is enjoyed by
virtually everyone, providing entertainment as well as a vehicle for expression.
Music instruction is something a lot of parents choose to invest in, but the majority
are unaware of just how beneficial it can be. For example, since the notes and beats
that make up music are expressed in fractions, lessons which use music help in the
teaching of this sometimes difficult math concept (Mosher, S. & Kelly, E., 1999).
Art can help to teach written expression and vocabulary (among other
things). An art program used for teaching academic content should have an art
history and appreciation focus as well as a creative one. A true work of art evokes
thoughts and feelings; it speaks to the observer. Art appreciation involves a
discussion about what each observer feels the work is saying to them. The
challenge of expressing feelings and esoteric concepts stretches language abilities.
Since every observer brings their own perspective and preferences,
discussions about art will reveal that differing opinions can be not only valid but
actually interesting and meaningful. This understanding of how perceptions differ,
and how they can be influenced, is important for effective communication. To
create a satisfying and significant work of art, the artist begins by thinking about
what is important to them. Since a person's interests can provide clues about their
inner self, researching a topic in terms of its artistic possibilities encourages one to
think deeply about how the topic makes them feel and what they want to say about

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it, which in turn gives them personal insight (California State Board of Education,
2001).
It is often necessary to learn quite a lot in order to master a sport or a craft;
but the enjoyment and satisfaction gained motivates this learning, and makes it
some of the most meaningful knowledge one ever acquires. Learning-technology
advisor Lloyd Reiber emphasizes that research bears out the importance of
embedding learning in "authentic situations", adding that activities which are
challenging enough to be stimulating, but intuitive enough to encourage
persistence (like games and artistic pursuits), are the best for learning (1996, p. 12).
Enrichment activities could serve as the foundation for academic studies, instead of
being regarded as an expendable luxury. American students are intellectually
impoverished; which is the predictable result of a school system that treats
enrichment as something they can do without. The solution to making American
education better is to flip it upside-down, allowing young people to explore what
they find interesting about the world. When they are interested, then they can be
truly taught.

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References
Archambault, I., Eccles, J. S., & Vida, M. N. (2010). Ability Self-Concepts and
Subjective Value in Literacy: Joint Trajectories from Grades 1 through 12
(paragraph 2). Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(4), 804-816.
Retrieved March 2011 from Kaplan Library ERIC.
Barham, P. (2001). The science of cooking. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Bauer, C. (2008). Algebra for athletes. Hauppage, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers.
Brown, S. & Vaughn, C. (2009). Play – How it shapes the brain, opens the
imagination, and invigorates the soul (p. 5). New York: Penguin Group.
Carter, C., Cohen, S., Keyes, M., Kusino, P., & Lunsford, C. (2000). Uncommon
knowledge: Projects that help middle-school-age youth discover the science
and mathematics in everyday life (p. 9). Charlestown, W.V.: ERIC
Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. Retrieved March
2011from Kaplan Library.
Engel, S. (2010, February 1). Playing to learn (op-ed.). Retrieved April 2011 from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02engel.html?scp=1&sq=enge
l%20feb%202010&st=cse

7. This was written by Liz Uelmen.
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Mosher, S. & Kelly, E. (1999). Math, fractions, and music. Perry Central Schools.
Retrieved November 2010 from
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/nysatl/Math/Music/html/index.html
California State Board of Education. (2001). Introduction to visual and performing
arts content standards for California public schools prekindergarten through
grade twelve (p. 3). California State Board of Education. Retrieved April
2011 from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss
Rieber, L. (1996). Seriously considering play: Designing interactive learning
environments based on the blending of microworlds, simulations, and games
(p. 12). Educational Technology Research and Development Vol. 44(2), p.
43-58. DOI: 10.1007/BF02300540