Learning From a Market

Why a market beats a museum

It is unfiltered, it is free, it is in use, and nobody has decided in advance what a child is supposed to notice.

Markets exist everywhere and they are all different, so this works whether you are in Kerala, Oaxaca, Marrakech or a car park in Yorkshire.

Go with one question, not a worksheet

Pick one and only one.

Where did this come from. Follow three items back as far as anyone will tell you.

What does it cost, and what does it cost somewhere else. Real price comparison across two markets is economics.

Who is doing what. Sellers, buyers, carriers, cleaners, the person whose job is not obvious.

What is in season. In most of the world the market tells you the month, and children can work out the calendar from the stalls.

Give them the money

A small amount, their choice, their transaction. Handing over money and receiving change in an unfamiliar currency is the whole lesson and it takes ninety seconds.

The language part

Numbers, greetings, please, thank you, how much. Five phrases and a market is a language lesson. Children who are too shy to speak in a classroom will speak to a stall holder because they want the thing.

Afterwards

One drawing, one price recorded, one sentence about something surprising. Do it the same day.

The recording is what turns an outing into a lesson, and it is the step families skip.

The thing that stays

Children who have bought food from the person who grew it have a relationship to food that is difficult to teach any other way.