Constructionism

This is a philosophy of education in which children learn by doing and experiencing. They explore and discover instead of being force fed information.

Much more on this topic can be found by exploring Google using keywords such as "constructionism", "education", "philosophy". One small start is here: http://mia.openworldlearning.org/constructivism.htm

More info can be found on Seymour Papert's website: http://www.papert.org

Alan Kay and his Squeak project have done a lot to make tools available to teachers who want to develop constructionist educational materials. Alan recently gave a keynote at EuroPython demonstrating how kids can learn without even realizing it.

Also this wikipedia article on constructionist learning