One of the great debates and Holy Grails in the education world is 'transfer'. Can a student apply the knowledge and skills they learned in Maths class in a different context, like Chemistry or Home Economics? Can they take the grammatical understanding gained in English and apply it in a History essay or in Spanish? Some would say, based on experience of students in their classroom, that this transfer of skills doesn't happen. It's not to say that it can't, it just doesn't seem to happen easily or naturally.
My morning at The BEACH exhibit at the National Building Museum provided ample evidence that humanoids of all ages seamlessly transfer learning from one experience to another. Here is what I witnessed:
(1) You are allowed to wear shoes in the water/ball-pit but everyone took off their shoes before going into the 'water'.
(2) A Dad in the 'water' picked up his young daughter and tossed her freely into the balls.
(3) Grandparents shouted "Don't go too far out! Stay where it's shallow!"
(4) Friends splashed each other with the 'water'.
(5) People left books and water bottles on deckchairs to keep their spots.
(6) Some people floated, some swam and some paddled.
Despite that fact that we were in "an enclosure and built out of construction materials such as scaffolding, wooden panels, and perforated mesh, all clad in stark white", and the 'ocean' was "nearly one million recyclable translucent plastic balls" people acted exactly like they would at a beach. It was fascinating!
I marveled at how easily all these strangers knew how to act in this familiar yet completely new and different context. Transfer is totally possible (in fact we do it all the time) - perhaps The BEACH just had one of the magic ingredient for transfer to happen easily - fun!
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