I'm into my 6th year of teaching through play. Long enough to explore some of the edges.
I use this continuum from the England Early years curriculum as a way of explaining how we use Play for learning. The edges being unstructured play (the type you would find students doing in the weekend, or initiating by themselves) and highly structured, (teachers explicit, direct teaching). In between is a really important place. The middle, the yellow box is where at least for schools in western education, the most effective learning takes place. Before I began learning through play, my teaching would have been mostly on focused learning to the highly structured side. There was very little, child-initiated play. The environment didn't allow for it, the timetable worked against it, and resources didn't support it. It was how it was, mostly teacher-directed.
Where are you these days? I know many Educators in New Zealand have started the journey of teaching through play. How exciting, because to do so means moving towards the yellow box. Working with students. That is what Innovative Learning Environments (ILE's) and collaborative teaching teams are meant to support. The whole point of changing environments is to spur Education on towards better and more meaningful learning opportunities for students allowing dispositions to unfold and grow. Play fits so well in this arena. It is a driver for change towards child-initiated learning.
Over the 6 years, I've experienced the whole continuum. I have been so blessed to have the freedom to be experimental. I acknowledge that teaching and learning through play is a journey and takes time to develop and needs space given to experiment. It is necessary for leaders to give Educators time. Here are a couple of things that require time to learn.
1. There is a place for the whole continuum within a play-based learning environment. Learning to move flexibly along the continuum is the real skill in learning to teach through Play. Knowing when to teach explicitly, when to gift knowledge or when to leave alone. There are many ways of building a culture that allows teachers to use wisdom in deciding what and when to teach. It is a journey in front of us, the thing is have you started and how are you going?
2. What I notice from my 6 years of teaching through play, is the change in myself of how play enables me to treat students. One of the most powerful aspects of play is that it locates teachers to notice children and shifts teachers enabling them to see children as learners who are capable and confident in their own right. Then it becomes about what comes first the learning or the teaching? Can you follow the students led? Can you partner with them in their passions and developmental stages? Fundamentally this continuum is about relationships. Relationships are at the heart of all we do.
The rights of the child, have you read them? How we treat children minute by minute, day by day is the most important thing we can do no matter where teach on the continuum. The ability to treat children well, to trust our ākonga (learner), to follow their interests often comes down to our enabling our school systems to change and allow flexibility. Decisions of how we teach and how we provide for children's care are critical. How do you view your learners? Can you see the gold within each one? Are you prepared to see that gold developed? No matter what the exterior or the behaviour they are our Ākonga. We don't often get to see the finished product, however, we see the beginning and that is far more important. We lay down the foundations. How we view each learner, how we treat them in the learning space, how we partner with them, how we set up the environment, how we create an enabling space, is critical. Relationships require more than words, they need action.
After all this time, I can say that none of this is easy. It feels like I have to fight to be able to teach Akonga in the yellow box. I can see why a system would want most teaching to be carried out in a highly structured arena. It is much easier to prepare one lesson for a class of children. It is easier to assess them with a standardised test. It is easier to control, having them in one place. It is money for big business producing worksheets, lesson plans and the like. However, it is not the best for the learner.
One thing our world needs more of desperately is kindness. Being able to uphold children's rights is one way of showing kindness to them. Play is a powerful medium to see this happen.
He aroha whakatō, he aroha ka puta mai
If kindness is sown, then kindness is what you shall receive
