The basic learning of life starts at school. These early ten years of our lives are so important that whatever we learn at this time remains with us throughout our whole lives. We live and grow with those learnings and lessons.
But at that time, when we were in school and learning all those things, we have never thought that these basic things will help us with bigger things in the future. It seemed like when we would move forward in our lives, we will leave these things behind. But guess what, we never thought a simple pencil sharpener has stuck with us and made us learn many more things and its mechanics, which are not just limited to the sharpening of a pencil.
We get to explore things in more depth from just basic little things. The things that have also helped teachers to make their teachings easier and more understandable for their students. It has been a part of classroom procedures that has made learning easy as well. Today there are all kinds of options to teach children in fun ways ranging from these fun little Hexbug Robots to learning math and strategy playing darts.
Let’s discuss one basic thing that each of us has done in our childhood: making paper airplanes. All of us, girls and boys, love to make paper airplanes and flying them across. It used to be our favorite thing to do. Even today’s children, who are mostly interested in gadgets more than other activities, love to play with paper airplanes.
How Do Paper Airplanes Help in Real Life?
Comparing real-life airplanes and paper airplanes might sound like a mismatch, but we know that our careers and professions are related to our real lives. While playing with paper airplanes in childhood, most of us got so inspired that we started thinking about them professionally. And at some point, we also wanted to become pilots or do engineering to learn how to make planes and their mechanics.
Yes, paper airplanes do put inspiration in kids for a good future that will provide them with satisfaction and peace of mind. And such inspiration will provide the strength to strive and work hard for the future they are dreaming of. How good would it feel when you just used to fly paper airplanes back then, and now you have achieved your dreams to fly a real airplane in life. All of this can be a major part of your life just because of a little spark of inspiration from a paper airplane.
How Can It Help in Teaching Procedures?
Children mostly learn things which they enjoy playing with. Creative things attract them. And that is why when you visit the kindergarten and junior school, you see creativity all around. These creative ways are best to get them interested and help in learning.
And when they get interested, they actually learn about those things. Teachers try to find little tricks, tips, and activities that will get their student’s attention. Making paper airplanes is one of the fun activities that both teachers and students enjoy.
Now how can this fun activity be a learning activity? Well, making a paper airplane, on its own, is a great task. It requires a little time and attention. And this will take patience and discipline as a part of their personality. They will put their effort into it, and if they fail, they must try again to make a better paper airplane. So, this also makes the student learn some basic morals and ethics, which they might not learn from most other fun activities.
Apart from it, students also learn about different shapes when making planes. They learn about different parts of planes like wings, flaps, ailerons, fuselage, cockpit, propellers, spinners, engine tail, rudders, and elevators. Without experimenting and these fun airplane activities, learning these parts can be quite difficult. It might sound weird to some people, but paper airplanes have an impact on the ethical and literal learning of children.
The Main Objectives That Are Learned Through Paper Airplanes
Everything we do or any experiment we perform has some objective. But some basic objectives that one can learn through paper airplanes are:
- Creating a paper model on their own and using it in experiments for learning different things.
- Using your observation skills and learning about flight, its calculation, and its formulas through paper airplanes.
- Learning to find the average distance of flight trails so that you can have a hint about how to do it for a real airplane.
- Learning to create small-sized models of some new projects as testing designs.
Paper Airplanes for Specific Studies
Paper airplanes are not just limited to the students of kindergarten, but they are also used by the students of higher classes. The students of grade 10 to 12 use paper airplanes to perform different experiments and calculations related to distance and flight in physics and mathematics. Performing these little experiments makes problem-solving easier, which otherwise can be difficult without any practical application.
If we talk about senior students of engineering or aviation, they need to work around with paper airplanes as part of their projects and assignments. Whenever engineers want to create something new, they design and test it on models first. And before doing anything professionally, they try it as experiments on paper airplanes to check if their idea can work or not.
This helps them determine if their new idea is best in speed, distance, and other factors. If their idea works on an experimental plane, the chance of their idea working on professional planes increases. This motivates them that it can be done on a practical level too.
These simple paper airplanes, which may look like quite a waste thing, have solved many problems and experiments for students of aviation, aerodynamics, and engineering.
Are Paper Airplanes an Unlikely Goal?
Paper airplanes are considered an unlikely goal for educational practitioners, administrators, consultants, and other people. Workshops have been held where experiments were performed regarding the confusion that paper airplanes are of no help in higher-level studies.
Two groups were made, one who has to give points in favor of paper airplanes and the other that has to give points against the use of paper airplanes in higher studies. However, still, they weren’t able to conclude whether paper airplanes are helpful or not.
But if we talk about the students’ point of view, paper airplanes have helped their experiments and projects as they are not allowed to perform experiments and do projects with professional equipment.
Paper Airplanes Can Make Learning Easier
Paper airplanes and actual airplanes have a huge difference in their structure and calculations, such as landing time, distance, flight, and other factors. But with the help of paper airplanes, we can somehow do little calculations of real airplanes.
In addition, we can learn faster with the paper airplane as compared to a real airplane. Hence, we can also say that paper airplanes are both helpful and useless at the same time. We hope you find this article informative and clear your confusion regarding the application of paper airplanes in teaching as a learning tool.