This week, we discussed early childhood education and the importance of play- not just for early childhood, for students of all ages. I really enjoyed Alex Elliot Lockhart’s TED talk about play, which is embedded below. The thing I appreciated the most about it is that, at the core, Alex is telling the audience that sometimes students know best. In my teacher education I have been taught this theory across many subjects, but I feel like I have rarely seen teachers fully implement that theory. I think as teachers we are afraid to let go, because although we may know in our heads this isn’t true, part of us still believes that teachers are the sole experts in the classroom, that they control how and when learning happens.
I think another reason that teachers may struggle to let go and simply let kids play is external pressures. There are deadlines to be met, the provincial curriculum, caregiver expectations, standardized tests, and goodness, I haven’t even mentioned rehearsing synchronized hand gestures for “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” in the upcoming Christmas concert! Then there’s liability and safety: what if a student is hurt climbing a tree under your supervision? What if they damage the new sneakers their parents struggled to buy? What if a younger student copies their tree ascent and falls?
I can recall the painful childhood injuries of myself and peers from engaging in “risky play”, or as I knew it, “play”. I distinctly remember when my classmate dislocated his shoulder playing red rover and the paramedics came down into the field to pop it back in, or something like that (I’m not a doctor, guys). My classmates and I were so frightened, we agreed to a new set of rules of our own invention to prevent this from happening again. Unprompted by adults, we evaluated our decisions, created a better plan, and tested it. We realized that really, there wasn’t a good way to to safely enjoy this game, and most of us stopped playing it. Still, that was the last injury that I recall happening from red rover.
If I am to “develop an understanding of how learners learn in order to cultivate effective learning environments”, it seems obvious to me now to “let go” sometimes and give students the chance to simply play in class. I watched my mentor teacher do this last year, and the complex ideas students generated while playing were not only fascinating, but informed my interactions with them. I am glad to be coming into this profession in a time where research is being produced that confirms the importance of good old fashioned play. I look forward to the challenges, bandaids, and big conversations that will inevitably come with this trend in education.
Ah, to relive a childhood where the term ‘risky play’ was not even in one’s lexicon! Your words, ‘I look forward to the challenges, bandaids, and big conversations that will inevitably come with this trend in education’, resonate with how I also feel with how (fingers crossed) the pendulum may swing us back to those episodes of play, play and more play!
Open those doors, go outside, play in the mud, scrape a knee or two and see the world through the eyes of a child is what I say! 🙂