Let the children play.

I was at a centre recently and we were discussing Learning Stories.  My question to this group of teachers was - what are your long term aspirations and goals for the children at the centre.  The teachers thought about this for a moment and replied - they would like the children to have empathy, to be socially competent, to have resilience and a surety about who they are.  I do think that there were a great deal more aspirations that these teachers had but in the moment that was their list.

After a bit of discussion about the aspirations we watched an interview with Sir Ken Robinson in which he was asked,  “What skills are essential for humanity to thrive in the modern world?”

Sir Ken Robinson has four areas that he thought we should grow in children - our long term aspirations for them.  These were the four area:

Creativity - which he described as the fruit of imagination.  I have heard others describe this also as divergent thinking.  Gansky  described divergent thinking as “the ability to branch out from a starting point and consider a variety of possible solutions, involves fluidity of thinking, broad scanning ability, and free association.”   

Compassion - Sir Ken Robinson says this comes from the same power as imagination.  It is being able to see things away from our immediate circumstances.   He calls it applied empathy and the cultural glue that holds us all together.

Composure - This he said is mindfulness.  He quoted recent statistics from the World Health Organisation that state in 2020 depression will be the biggest form of disability. He goes on to say that children need to feel whole.   Within ECE I think this about seeing the tamaiti as a whole person with spirituality, mana, a past, present and future who is rich in potential and ensuring that the tamaiti has the same understanding of themselves.  Maybe we would call this belonging - but belonging is very very big.  Small word big meaning. 

Collaboration - He said children need to learn to work together rather than as individuals.  Going into the future if children have learnt collaboration they will be facing common challenges together.  I can imagine that if children are sharing their ideas, thoughts and passions in a collaborative way when facing problems while they are young then when faced with new challenges in the future that they will have the multiple perspective and ideas available to them through this ability to collaborate.

The teachers from the centre had actually spoken about many of the skills essential for humanity listed by Sir Ken Robinson.   

It is always amazing to me that when you hear something for the first or second time then you start to notice and hear about it more.  It is a little like when you buy a car and all of a sudden you see that particular brand everywhere and you hadn’t noticed it before.  Well that feeling has happened to me over the last week - hearing those teachers speak, hearing Sir Ken Robinson’s interview and now today an article I found on the internet called, ‘The Decline of Play and Rise of Children’s Mental Disorders’.  In the article Peter Gray talks about the decline of play and the correlation between lack of time to play  and depression in older children.

Gray wrote, “Free play and exploration are, historically, the means by which children learn to:

solve their own problems, 

control their own lives, 

develop their own interests, 

and become competent in pursuit of their own interests.”

Solve their own problems - creativity.

Control their own lives - composure.

Develop their own interests, and become competent in pursuit of their own interests - if you have seen they way children work together and share their passions and interests you would know there is a strong link to - compassion and collaboration.

If I were to ask how can we build creativity, composure, compassion and collaboration within the children we teach I wonder if we would all answer - ‘let the children play.’

This is a link to the article:  

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201001/the-decline-play-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders

The Journey

I was reminded this weekend about the importance of the journey rather than just the destination.  My mokopuna Flectcher (9),Taylor (6) and I decided to go for a walk to a local harbour beach and the island that is accessible only at low tide, Motuopuhi Island.  According to Google Maps this is only a 17 minute walk but what does Google know about the journey rather than the destination.

As we walked, at a very slow place, we discovered hidden treasures amongst the rocky shore - a soccer ball, a tennis ball, sticks that could break others that could not, some that could be weapons and taiaha and all varying lengths and density.  Each time we slowed and looked deeper into the rocks I reminded myself it is not the destination that matters Lynn.  In fact we might not even reach the island because the journey has taken over and that would be alright.

Who would have thought about the number of conversations that could come out of sticks - why does the bark peel off, why is this one so little, what is this sort of wood, how did they get here and many more.  Conversations and questions that we all puzzled over that meant our 17 minute walk turned into an hour one way but it felt like no time at all.  Is this what  Csikszentmihalyi meant when he talked about “Flow”?

Finally we reached our destination and to our delight there were many more sticks that could be broken, smashed on rocks, woven together to make a teepee, used for slingshots and bow and arrows.  We trekked around the island and over it through the long grass without a path.  Fletcher showed me how brave he could be as he set out ahead of Taylor and I delighting in the unknown and seeing it as a new adventure.

As we walked home it was a time of further conversations about what makes the world go round.   Taylor sparked up a conversation that may have been inspired by the sticks - bow and arrows.  He started by saying, “Nanna we shouldn’t have guns and arrows that way no one would die except for when they are old and that’s ok.”  He thought a little more about this because he understands about hunting and fishing from his hunter gathering whānau.  “Maybe some people could have guns though so they could hunt for animals but we can’t use guns to hunt for people.”  Taylor is a deep thinker and I wondered how many wonderful conversations had preempted this one to get him to a place where he could understand so much about life.  There is research which highlights the importance of having conversations with babies.  Apparently researchers can determine the success of a 32 year old by the number of words spoken to them while they were a baby.  There is a proviso to this though and that it has to be quality communication. This research makes me wonder about all the wonderful conversations that children can experience throughout those first 7 years that will build children’s capacity for divergent thinking.  It is up to us to make the time for the conversations especially when we remember that it is not the destination but the journey.  We may already have the answers to children’s questions but let us not rob them of the journey of inquiring by using our words to inform rather than encourage.

At the beginning of our day we had set out for a destination but actually it was the journey that held just as much if not more learning.  Which made me think about teaching and learning - for both it is the journey isn’t it.  Particularly for us as teachers it is great to be reminded about the importance of the journey.  We can have a destination in mind which may look like one month of planning in advance based around an idea of what we think children would be interested in.  If we focused on the journey, taking the time for the conversations and questions that children pose there would be a certain amount of uncertainity but I think that this is a wonderful place to be in. To use some of Lorraine Sands words, it would mean that teacher practice would shift away from the routinised, predictable timetable where teachers are the comfortable knowers  and into a space of embracing uncertainity and tuning into this mysterious work of the unknown journey that children’s questions can take us on.  Then teachers can be prepared to wonder at, be surprised by and then to consider the myriad questions and solutions that children have that lead into directions that are unpredictable and unknowable in advance.

THE RACE TO NOWHERE

I was fortunate to attend the ICOT13 conference in Wellington recently.  This was a fascinating 5 day conference to expand global thinking around the themes of ‘future survival‘, ‘personal futures‘ and ‘future society‘. During the conference I attended a workshop presented by Ron Ritchhart on 'Enlisting Parents as Allies: Working Together to Develop Powerful Thinkers and Learners.'  As many of the teams I work with find it challenging to engage and enlist parents, this workshop seemed like an excellent choice and I wasn't disappointed.  


Ron spoke of creating  'Culture's of Thinking, creating place where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted.'  With parents focus often being on their child 'being school ready', how do we as teachers broaden their view so that they think about "what do we want children to be like as adults?"  We need them to know that this is about thinking about all children not their specific child, all children in our community. He said that when he has asked parents this they tend to come up with a huge list of dispositions, not skills and knowledge.  

He also shared how parents often worry that when you focus on dispositions that something is missing out, left behind, but we need to share that we are not leaving anything behind, we are lifting the bar!  We need to find ways for parents to understand that dispositions can't be directly taught, they are learnt over time, children grow into the intellectual life around them, so they need to ask themselves "what life are we surrounding children with?"

How do we talk to parents?  How do you structure the talk to them?  Ron suggested that we make links to a research base, as it gives parents ideas of where these ideas come from enabling them to investigate it further if they want to.  That we need to provide a rational for change from the status quo.  We also need to help connect parents to familiar experiences or context to get parents to see where education is going, share that we are lifting the bar!  Unpack the core practices with rich examples and get parents to engage in conversations, don't talk too long before you engage them in discussion!  Finally he suggested that we need to provide specific things parents can do and actions they can take at home.  Talk with parents about working TOGETHER.  How together, we can develop powerful thinkers and learners.  It's taking it further than just saying “this is what we do here”, it also saying “here is what you too can do at home.”

I'll leave you with four shifts on the way we educate to actively promote thinking that Ron shared...

1, Shifting instruction from the delivery of content to engagement.
2, Shifting the focus of curriculum from skills and knowledge to develop understanding.
3, Shifting the approach to curriculum from superficial coverage to depth of exploration.
4, Shifting the process of learning from memorisation to thinking.
These are the shifts for parents to look out for as a setting is on this journey, when all are happening then their setting as managed the change!

Watch the video clip from the link below about the Race to Nowhere, it's a good clip to share with parents to get THEM thinking! 

http://www.racetonowhere.com/thanks#prettyPhoto/0/

Arohanui 
Gillian