We believe that each child is unique and there cannot be only one approach to fit all children. Through careful observation, we adapt our methodologies to suit the individual child's needs and learning style.
How We Work
To build a strong independent learner, a solid foundation is essential. Our six pillars of learning are crucial to create this solid base.
Our Pillars of Learning
- by Hilary Craig
Why do Hils Learning carry pictures of frogs, rather than schoolbooks, desks or even children? Because more and more, the world of science believes that these jumping, bug-eyed amphibians carry clues about what is to come for our world.
Many years ago in Canada, my interest in these creatures was triggered by a science project I undertook with a group of children, on the dwindling populations of frogs. We were examining the factors that may have led to the smaller and smaller number being spawned.
Then, when I came to Malaysia, I became happily aware of the dense local population of frogs. In the days before we saw the poisonous effects of climate change, the heavy afternoon rains would hammer down and gradually stop. And then when the world was still damp, the fat, rich frog chorus in the drains would begin. Their loud, raucous, joyful voices echoing all around made me laugh and feel as though I too should celebrate the rain.
That was 1997, the year of the devastating haze that lasted for months. The effect of the smog was evident in the dramatically reduced numbers of butterflies and birds in our garden – and in the number of frogs. No longer did we experience the deafening chorus after the rain and no longer did the frogs lay their eggs in our pond.
With time the birds returned, and the butterflies too, albeit in reduced numbers. But the drop in frog numbers was dramatic. The rainsong had been silenced.
So again, why frogs?
Frogs adapt differently. They rely on their skin for hydration and in part, for their breathing.Their natural survival mechanisms did not work well in the face of dramatic environmental changes caused by the haze. When my son, David, who has done all the design work at Hils Learning, suggested that we use a frog for our company flyer, it somehow seemed fitting.
It tied in with my thinking that many of the children we work with, like the frog, employ a different set of living and thinking tools– and as a result experience difficulty in school. But unlike the frog with its physical disadvantage in the face of an onslaught of change, at Hils, we know it is possible to work with an individual so that she may learn efficiently in a world that, while not ideal, is our reality.
We know that it is possible to enable a child’s uniquely different thinking to work to their advantage. It is our hope that they will then bring this gift of different thinking to the world we all inhabit.