Just this past week, I watched and waited to see the play unfold during a dramatic play session. In this case, the play immediately fell across gender lines and exclusion. Depending on how the play unfolds, the watching and waiting is sometimes hard for me, because I am always thinking about how to “make things better.” This characteristic is very important when imagining and shaping the space and materials before the children come in, but once the children are there and engaged in the environment we have carefully crafted, I have to actively remind myself that I do not hold all of the answers. I only hold my answers.

Tracks built a house on Tuesday. It had a roof of fabric and walls made of wooden hollow blocks. The thing about the walls, though, is that they could come down with barely a huff and puff. They were made with a single layer of hollow blocks, set end on end, in order to achieve greater wall height — think about when you built a fabric-roofed house. When you stood up inside and pushed the roof up with your head, the roof sank in further when you sat back down. And then remember how you wanted some things to be on top of the roof? Like stuffed animals or fake flowers, because a 2nd floor makes a house even better? You knew you couldn’t be on the roof, but you could certainly find things that could! Then the roof would sink even further, eventually becoming a carpet.

Well, all these experiences were in the Leaves’ near future and they totally moved into the house and disregarded the buyer-beware clauses in the contract. BUT . . .  they all didn’t move in. Only the girls moved in. They took over the house IMMEDIATELY. “Boys are not allowed.” I didn’t move in immediately to redirect, I just pointed out that we need all kinds of people to live on the Earth. It wasn’t long before the house was caving in, and the boys, who had been left to build their fabric-less house made of the few hollow blocks left and assorted unit blocks offered to help rebuild it.

That didn’t sit completely well with me, from my position of teacher-observer (aka Mrs. Bossy Pants) because the girls sat inside like little empresses while the repairs were underway and the boys worked without acknowledgement or thanks and with great difficulty because it is hard to renovate a house when the homeowners are hanging around inside all day yelling at you about your work. Still I just observed — a little bit observed, because I just had to offer, “Wow, that is nice of the boys to repair a house they are not allowed into.”

Then, after the repairs were done and the work crew back at their own home construction site, one of the girls walked over to the neighbors and said, “Thank you for repairing our house. You can come over any time.”

 

 

“No, you can’t,” came a voice from inside the pink house. And with the simplest of prompts, I said, “Maybe they could check to see if you need something repaired.” And with that, they all moved on, and played together, visiting back and forth, between the houses, adding details to each structure. When the next group came in to see the two structures created, they had a completely different take on what to do with them. They immediately named the one a house, but the unit block structure became a garden with sculptures.

 

 

All is well, that ends well.

The evening before the Annual Meeting and his presentation, Andrea gave me the assignment of traveling with our first haul of dumpster booty while she returned for more with other parents and teachers. I lost my ride and our friend for San Anselmo Cooperative Nursery School, Chantal Micheline found me a ride with Tom. Tom didn’t even bat an eye when I transferred the haul to his car. He is no stranger in the reuse, repurpose game after all. We visited Oswego Playschool, a warm, cozy place and on our way there and then on the way back to the hotel, we did what cooperative school teachers do, talked about EVERYTHING in bits and pieces. We are so used to finding tiny slivers of time to talk to adults and being able to express grand ideas in short bursts from listening to children that we are able to free wheel ourselves around all kinds of topics in 60 second bursts.

It was just as we pulled into the parking lot when we touched on art. I found myself saying something that I have said a lot, “the art at our school is like smoke and mirrors, it is lovely to look at…the most important part of our program is the social dramatic play.” It just tumbled out and here is the thing — it wasn’t until the next day, listening to Tom’s presentation that I started thinking, “What is that supposed to mean???” It really sells the whole thing short and that is why professional development, networking with other teachers, and igniting, or in this case, feeding our own flames is so important.

What I mulled over as I listened to Tom talk about filling pails and igniting flames, is that in early childhood education, it is easier to present and describe instances of children taking physical risks. On the other hand, how children take intellectual risks in a play-based environment is a bit more complicated to illustrate. We know, of course, that taking physical risks result in so many intellectual gains. The lightbulb moment for me happened when Tom talked about how each year, the children craft their classroom agreements. Cooperative schools are founded on the democratic model — they function for the most part on consensus rather than majority rules. Parents and teachers arrive at agreements and this naturally and rightfully trickles into the classroom structure. We agree — parents, children, and teachers — to fold in each of our diverse views and to arrive at something that rings true to our community.

We devote time at each of our monthly membership meetings to support this effort, not just in terms of operational decisions like setting tuition, but also in understanding and shaping our philosophical underpinnings. The children also do this during our circle times and through small group meetings. “I need a meeting” is such a common refrain in the 4-5s class that we usually have 3 or 4 scheduled throughout the day.

A meeting about a triangle friendship...the children are talking about how to welcome a third friend in to the play when the pattern has been working just as a pair.

This is time well spent, igniting-wise. It gives the children time and space to express their needs relative to their community. Taking the time to do this enables the children the confidence needed to take intellectual risks. They become comfortable and conversant in sharing their experiences and ideas with others. We see this every day. It is amazing. Then -bing- I realized that this is what we do with the artwork at our school.

People ask us how the artwork happens at our school. My dismissal of it in the “smoke and mirrors” comment needs to be addressed. In actuality, the care we take in building our community and in creating opportunities for physical risk as well as the care we take in making room for the children to go out on a limb with their ideas — we do this same thing with paint and paper.

The artwork is an ongoing conversation with intellectual risk. We begin the conversation as we would with any conversation, using the vocabulary of line, shape, and color. Most importantly, we revisit the conversation. We don’t walk away after one conversation. Just as diverse views on the same topic are acceptable in creating our community, we welcome many differing expressions of line, shape, and color to arrive at individual experiences of the whole. To sell that piece short, to simply offer art experiences as an aside or as a one-time endeavor walks away from an opportunity for building intellectual risk.

Adding watercolor paint to a background painted with tempera/glue mixture. The tempera/glue mixture was applied using golf balls. The lines and tracks left offer the opening words of a conversation for the watercolor.

We are a community that is capable of expressing ideas through action, through the exchange of ideas, and also on paper and through careful arrangement of objects. It certainly is not so easy to dismiss as “smoke and mirrors” indeed. It is as careful and thought-filled as any of our endeavors. It is another flame ignited rather than simply poured in!

Secondly, Lesley and I discovered the BEST DUMPSTER EVER!  Things really do happen for a reason.  Our drivers (not the ones we were originally scheduled to drive with) got a little lost on the way to the Awards Dinner and thank goodness they did.  When we pulled into a parking lot to double check the map Lesley and I both spotted a dumpster with a wallpaper sample book poking out of the top.  We couldn’t get out of the car fast enough.  From experience we know that where there is one sample book there will be more sample books and possibly even something better. In this case we found a dumpster full of fabric, wall paper, formica, floor tiles, lucite and more. We were also able to take people back after the Awards Dinner and share the treasures with them.  I was very jealous of the people who were close enough to drive to Portland – I would have filled up the whole car! As it was, Lesley and I were able to carry back about 50 lbs of treasures in each of our suitcases!

The third thing was triggered by the guest speaker, Tom Hobson (Teacher Tom), from Woodland Park in Seattle Washington. As part of his presentation he talked about play and risk.  Two things I think we are really good at fostering here at The Cooperative School.  But I was also still thinking about the dumpster the night before.  I realized what play was for me; new discoveries, surprises, the challenge of filling our suitcases to maximum capacity without being penalized for weight and figuring out how to get the best tiles from the bottom of the dumpster without falling in head first.  I also liked being able to share that with others.  Isn’t that what teaching is all about?

The other side of play for me is the discovery.  If someone had taken us to the dumpster it would have been great but finding it ourselves was what made it extra special.  It is important for us as teachers and parents to allow the magic of self discovery to happen for the kids too.  We want to model appropriate behavior but the best gift is to let kids discover for themselves, to remove ourselves from the conversation.  Don’t give away all the secrets.

When I was studying for my first degree (Radio, Television, and Film) we thought, talked, and wrote about how the camera’s presence subtly and sometimes even profoundly influences the environment it seeks to capture. In documentary films like the Maysels’ Salesman, 1968 and The Burks of Georgia, 1974 or Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA, 1976, the viewer must wonder…how did the presence of the camera change the unfolding of these people’s lives? Simply put, the camera changes it.

This question is also considered in still photography. Lucien Aigner, Erich Salomen, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Frank, and Robert Capa all used small format cameras to document their subjects. And these cameras were quite revolutionary for the time. Robert Frank confidently captured moments private and profound on the wide angle offered via his Leica by simply clicking in the direction of his subjects often not even looking through the view finder. These photographers shunned the physically large cameras, big lenses, and tripods available for something that would not be noticed by their subjects.

Consider the forever and always delicious photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Children at a Puppet Theater Paris 1963. The children are one with the play, St. George and the Dragon. Their emotions and facial expressions are soaring and flying with the action. Only one is looking directly at the camera. Yet she too, is part of the drama, her sister pulling her close and therefore this little one is able to have the luxury of looking away from the puppet battle.

At nursery school, my subjects are children in their natural element and even though my Canon Powershot ELPH is about the size of a Leica, the children definitely know I have it in my hand because they will sometimes ask me to take a photo of something they have built or organized to “save it” they tell me. They will also retrieve it for me when I set it down. They know it so well. We need these photos to record what they are doing and therefore what they are learning. These photos also reveal patterns of play. We use these for reflection, as teachers. We can see which children are playing together, what kinds of play they most often engage in, what materials they use and how they use these. So most of the photos do not land in the children’s portfolios, but are a valuable piece of their story.

This photograph, Paris Street Scene 1963, also by Eisenstadt gets us closer to documenting play patterns…

All this considered, I am so aware of the presence of the camera and try very hard to remove it from the conversation. My little Powershot ELPH, is digital with automatic focus and has a large view screen, a viewfinder is not even an option nor is it necessary. In fact, I do not need to look at the view screen! I aim, sometimes at hip level, holding the shutter halfway to focus on the middle ground and clicking through. I also use the same camera to collect HD videos in much the same way. I hold the camera to the side and film away. Outside, I find myself standing behind bushes and trees now that they have grown in so well or behind doors and block structures inside.

Some of these photos are collected on our facebook page and our flickr page, both accessible here. The videos are available for viewing on our TPCNS youtube channel. If you watch the videos you can see that the children will often look at the camera because I — and my camera — have been standing still too long, or they want to ask me a question. So these videos may be of interest, from a documenting play perspective, they also must be viewed knowing that the camera is very much present in the environment.

We choose to play with water and with it comes the joys of busy and purposeful work while cooling off on a hot day with the eventual — and pretty much guaranteed — downside of getting wet, sandy, and muddy. The children were asked, “Do you want to get wet, sandy, and muddy?” Based on their answer, they could then own the reality that comes with the choice to play with water. This idea of making a choice to accept the good with the bad is very useful in life. The children also learned some other useful life skills this week.

They learned that they could jump really, really high (and far), but some chose to jump from a lower surface, because if you are going to jump it is your body.

They also learned that they could choose whether to play “Battle” or what I call “Against” or “Get” — this is a really common play pattern that young children engage in which is kind of like tag, but it is marked by words like “Let’s get them.” And usually involves a set of children chasing (or getting) another group of children or taking things that they are playing with and running. Unfortunately, most of the time the “getting” group does not check in with the children they are taking things from. We called it “Battle” because the game that the Leaves are playing is a battle — they are battling bad guys, but they assigned the role of bad guy to various children who do not know they are part of the game or do not want to play. As is our practice, we do not eliminate the game that results in a-shrieking and a-noise, we help the children connect the dots and add components that are necessary for “Against” and “Get” type play — the components that are necessary are…

1. We checked in during circle to find out who was playing the game — children who wanted to play stood up and those who did not want to play stayed sitting. The children made eye contact with the battle and non-battle gamers
2. We reminded them that battle/get games belong outside — not in the classroom
3. We talked about checking in often to see if others are actually still playing your game during the play

Establish a base so that you have a built-in checkpoint for the players. Base gives everyone a place and time to revisit the rules with them and gives them a place to take a break from running.

So while they worked out the details of “No you aren’t” and “Yes we are” one of the campfire builders noticed that there was a plastic wrapped, store bought, pile of wood sitting unused right at the base of the den. She tried to pick it up by the cord handle stapled into the topmost log, but couldn’t move it. I lifted it over the dry creek bed and set it down so that the group could problem solve how to get it to the back of the yard. Fortunately they all agreed that it was the best collection of firewood, EVER. So, the only problem was how to get it to the back.

Well, here is the thing, they wanted help — as in…”You carry this back, teacher.” I kind of started spinning my wheels trying to talk them through carrying it — which mostly involved telling them to work it out and you can imagine how unhelpful that was in their opinion. One of our co-opers came around the corner with a branch and helped them slide it through the handle and the concept of the simplest carrying machine was passed on to another generation.

It was another one of those moments when I get to stand back and thank my lucky stars for working in a parent cooperative. During each class (I teach two age grouped classes) I have 3 co-oping parents working with me — roughly 60 adults take turns working in the classroom on a weekly or every other week basis. Over the course of the school year, each one of these adults brings something very special into the children’s lives. The children learn that each adult has unique skills and this is, perhaps, the loveliest message of all gained during their enrollment at our school.

These folks found us through our facebook page, facebook groups, and others through pins on pinterest, but to be more exact, I would say we found each other. These social networking sites opened up a world of possibility for me professionally and this was not the original intention when we joined each platform (our most recent add…google+). I initially envisioned the school’s interactions on social platforms as a way to keep in touch with alumni even though the co-oping mom who helped me set it up knew that it could be much more than that.

The “more than that” ended up being about idea-sharing and shaping/hammering out our approach about what we mean by “best practices” in early childhood. A great example of this global sharing is offered via Kierna Corr in her blog post, Inspired by the Internet. Of course, I have gravitated to like-minds, but I have also learned about what other people views are on best practices.

Through all these interactions, I have come to some conclusions about why crediting sources and acknowledging inspirations is so important, especially using social media because it is so easy to let the like buttons and sharing options do the work for us.

The idea of crediting sources goes back to something I learned while working on my teaching degree. My first degree/career was in film/video production and scriptwriting. While we studied film theory, the actual work was imagined as one of innovation and the Next Big Idea.  When I began my master’s program, I thought that was what was expected. That changed quickly as I saw not just the value, but the need, for sourcing and grounding practice in research. There are many disciplines  that hold with the belief, rightfully so, that the source of the practice is as important as the practice itself — not alone, but in harmony. Disciplines ranging from yoga to biology source the research, the ideas, and the inspiration. In early childhood, this is especially evident in Reggio-inspired and Montessori settings. The words, “I studied with…” and “inspired by…” grounds practice and validates training.

Ideas are the currency of academia, as Judy Hunter, director of the Writing Lab at Grinnell College, noted in her tutorial … “A citation is both a signpost and an acknowledgement. As a signpost, it signals the location of your source. As an acknowledgement, it reveals that you are indebted to that source.”  She succinctly observes that in an academic context, there are three crucial reasons for citations: one, ideas are “the currency of academia”; two, a failure to cite the origin of an idea “violates the rights of a person” who first came up with it; and three, “academics need to be able to trace the genealogy of ideas.”

Citation and acknowledging sources means that we become stronger, together. Our work becomes a unified force with far-reaching impact. It becomes unassailable and creates common ground. And most importantly, it becomes doable. We are all on the same page.

I, myself, have used the expression, “I am stealing that.” It is such a common refrain in education, but I must actively remember — ideas are currency in academia. I actively remind myself, “I must give props“. Now for some practical advice regarding sourcing ideas on facebook. Compared to google+ which prompts you to remember that the original post was shared in a particular way, “Are you sure?” it asks, the facebook platform tells us, “share, share, like, like, like” it becomes so easy to simply share away. Facebook users have to be purposeful in their shares to credit their sources. It takes an extra step, but a simple one and it begins with “@”. By typing in an @ followed by the name of your source, you have now credited the source. Alec Duncan at Child’s Play Music is an expert at this…he provides a reflection and adds the source. Other page administrators do this as well. I administrate the Parent Cooperative Preschools International’s page and while I do not offer in-depth reflections, I purposefully tag the source of the photo/status in my share. This way there is a credit that will carry through subsequent shares. This action returns the facebook user back to the original share.

Another method of sharing cuts out any possibility of returning viewers ever to the original source and that is when admins download the original image and then upload it onto their pages as a seemingly fresh source. In at least one instance, some industrious facebook admin actually edited the original image to cut out the source which was Emily Plank – Abundant Life Children. I liken this to the daily photo challenge created by Donna Ridley-Burns (Irresistible Ideas for Play-Based Learning) and Marc Armitage (Marc Armitage at Play), both incredible photographers and educators. When they asked for participation a year ago, a lot of folks joined in, each with a unique approach. Ayn Rorick Colsh of Little Illuminations offered up a book-a-day and I responded with the only thing I knew and do…photographic examples of what I witness every day. Play. I tagged the first round as #Play365Plus1 because it was a leap year. I loved the project so much that I began another year tagged simply, #Play365. This is not the Next Big Idea, but it is sourced to me and I know of a few pages and individuals who have adopted this tag/album name. Good for all of us. We are creating a unified force, but in the meantime, ideas are the currency of academia. Credit the source.

Let’s face it. Good ideas travel fast and with social media platforms, they travel far and wide. Let’s work together to make sure we are building common ground, that we are connecting with each other, and that we are truly a unified force.

For those of you who may not have come across me before, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Suzanna, I come from the UK and I am a qualified playworker. My journey to become a playworker was fraught with complications and confusion, but I am very happy to say that all 5ft-not-quite-2-inches of me stands tall and proud to say that I love my job and I love playwork.

I love my work so much that sometimes it’s so hard to separate my professional working time as a playworker, from my own personal life as Suzanna. I often find myself working 12 hour days, answering emails until midnight, making mistakes and becoming frustrated because I have lost focus. And then going to bed stressed, which is never a good idea. Those are the days that I know that I missed a something in my day: I didn’t take a break.

When I don’t take a break from work, everything feels a little wrong. I feel like my day is completely dictated by other people, and is unnecessarily pressured. I can’t focus on anything, my decisions become irrational, and I feel my patience wearing thin with every encounter. When this avalanche of feelings starts snowballing, I now know to stop what I’m doing and go play. I will do something unrelated to anything of any importance, and then come back to my work refreshed and ready to tackle things head on. In sum, I need to spend a few moments of my day controlling the intent and content of my activities: I need to play.

This is the same for children. Take away their recess, their play time, and things will start going awry. They don’t learn as effectively, quickly lose focus and get fidgety. No matter how much they love science, enjoy reading or have a gift for numbers, they won’t be able to give their whole selves to anything unless we give them time to themselves.

And giving them time to play means that children are able to experience childhoods to their fullest. They learn and experience moments that the classroom cannot teach, like how it feels to make a friend, what it’s like to change mud into pie, how it feels to follow one idea to the next, and to the next, and know that what you have created was uniquely yours.

I take time out of my day every day to play because I remember what it was like to play as a child. Do you remember what it feels like to play? I can’t imagine ever taking that away from children, can you?

Suzanna Law

Roughhousing is vital for some children though! Please see New York Times and an earlier blog post from Emory Luce Baldwin talks about how roughhousing should be included in “easy fun for families”.

We create a time and space for small play and we also have to create a time and space for rough play although it usually occurs in the 4/5s class. This year, the class is approaching roughhousing in a very funny way. Whenever they start, I can’t help but think/hear phrases like, “Clash of the Titans,” shouted in a big voice of a wrestling ring announcer, but see, that would be my adult lens distorting what was actually going on which is not fighting at all.

For some children turning 3 and just-4 years old, roughhousing is not so much a want as a need. The children are compelled to connect with others, but they often cannot apply any shape or rules to it in a group setting. It works better at home and in a one-on-one setting. During parent trainings for the 3/4s class, I call this “puppy play” because that is what it resembles. Since the children are just only then developing the structure of rule-governed play, it is our job to redirect the play or save it for home (see “Easy Fun For Families“). As children are 4 and turn 5, it is our job to create that time and space in the school day for those who need to roughhouse can and they are ready to shape it with their own rules.

This is how we approach it: the first thing the children establish is the “who wants to play”, “who is playing”, “safety rules”, and then the “signal to stop”. First rule of roughhousing club…only OUTSIDE in an open-space. Second rule of roughhousing club, “Know when to stop.”

During our brainstorming session, I told the roughhousing players that for the last couple of years the children voted to use the word, “strawberry” to signal when to stop. They felt this is still the right word. “Strawberry” calls an all-stop.

This year, I could see from the play language that two of the children were signaling that a more formal structure was required for their roughhousing. They needed a wrestling ring. The wrestling ring brings its own gifts. You have children keen on drawing and redrawing the circle, so that is good because children interested in the idea of roughhousing, but not the actual thing, can still be involved.

The ring created its own rule…once you are pushed out of the ring, the round is over. That is also good because it is better than pulling/pinning down as the signal for wrestling. It is hard to hear say the word, “Strawberry” with your face pushed into the mulch. The downside of the ring visual is that children were keen on cheering for one or the other roughhouser. This is in direct violation of our City of Takoma Park zip code’s ordinances which clearly state that everyone is a winner (big smile!). More importantly, it breaks the second rule of roughhousing, “Know when to stop.” With all the hollerin’ and a noise, the roughhousers couldn’t hear the safe word. We talked about it and voted out the cheering option.

So, if the magic happens outside your comfort zone, find a way to make your circle bigger. Roughhousing has its time and place.

This large machinery was necessary to shape what would become the sandpit and to move three boulders into place. The boulders themselves were heaved into the backyard using ancient technology of skids and levers, though. The sandpit itself has stood the test of time in regards to its original plan — an intricately engineered design featuring a three foot deep hole edged with pond-edging material, with two deep-drainage holes, and then filled with sand carefully selected sand. For many years, one of the alumni dads would come back to the school during the summer months and water it to address the possibility of aerated silica. All of this shouts “much love” in a pay-it-forward way, because many of the parents who worked on this project would only be at the school for only another couple of months, meaning that their children would play on the new playground using its new features only until the end of that school year.

The sandpit and the dirt moved from the pit that created what we call, “The Berm” are the focal points of our playground. The sandpit serves as a gathering place for so much play and now, many years after its construction, revealing the underlying structure of the pit has become a rite of passage for our oldest age group, the Tracks. At some point in the year, they will “discover” the “black edge” of the sandpit. Following this discovery, they will find “white sand” and “clay” along with all “Baba Yaga hair” (the fine, but gnarled, roots of surrounding trees that have made their way past the pond edging material). They, inevitably all agree to begin to find the bottom of the sandpit.

This is the gift that the parents gave these children that they have never met and these children are now revisiting the history of that giving, shovel-full by shovel-full.