If they're playing they're not learning!

"If they're playing, they're not learning" is what you might really think if you come and visit our school.  Actually, it is what our education system is set up to believe.   Despite what our curriculums, Te Whariki, and the NZC, which are world-class, say, the word on the street is that children need teachers to learn.  Children need schools.

Everyone has been to school, everyone knows how the system really works.
Remember!  The bell rings to tell you when to go to class.  The class is arranged with desks where you are directed to sit.  The timetable tells you what subject you will learn at what time.  A task is set for you by the teacher, which tells you how you will learn about that subject.  Then you are given a test to make sure you have learned it and if you haven't you are made to do more of it for longer periods of time.  And we believe that this is actually how we learn and that this is okay because that is the way we have always done it. We didn't all like school, but we did okay, so it must be correct, right?

Then there are the statistics which tell us that those in poverty, those with certain race backgrounds, those living in certain areas are most likely to fail.  Millions are spent on programmes of change. Research is published which 'proves' that these students do much better when they are explicitly told what to learn, earlier, even though the statistics haven't changed.   Tweaks are made to a system which in my opinion has grown into a force which overrides common sense, it even overrides brain research.  The system has grown into a monster which terrifies educators if they dare to step outside of it.

If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we have always got.

Let me share with you some of my highlights from the beginning of 2019.

My heart is happy, and I love my job because I am trusted to make decisions which help children to learn.  I start each day in the mara, the garden, with around 20 students ranging in age from 5 to 17.  We meet in a shed, say hello, and chat about the day.  Relationships are key.  Each one at different stages. We have authentic, caring and real conversations.   "How are you today?"  is not just a throwaway line, but a topic we spend time on.  Do you need breakfast?  Sometimes, we cook food together.  Building relationships mean stopping to listen and then respond, sometimes the most powerful response is 'I'm sorry to hear that'.  Sometimes, building relationships are stopping to think about the behavior a person is displaying.  Why?  Then acknowledging the pain, providing the lack, giving the gift of space and time to process the pain.

 When ready, each student chooses what they will be doing for the day.  These choices are unique to each one.  Maybe, they are choosing to learn in certain spaces, playing with stuff, imaginary play, dramatic play, creative play, following deep urges which drive them.  Urges which are set up to support humans to learn urges which need to be listened to.  Sometimes, they choose a workshop on offer, sometimes, they are following an inquiry which they have decided to pursue. They choose the space depending on what they need.  The spaces enable students to practice self-regulation.

I can tell you, it doesn't look pretty, it is messy, ununiformed, not in order, not quiet, not still always but it is real.  And real means we can work with it and in it, and learn constantly. At our place, Haeata Community Campus, on the Teina side, the educators stay in spaces but the children decide where they need to be.

Around 10.15am we move back over to a building, which is set up with different options.

Teachers thoughtfully, with heart, acknowledge children as partners, design spaces, where children can be active participants without being wrong.  Teachers increasingly think about children as being capable of driving their own learning and the spaces reflect this.

At our heart are relationships.  A deep abiding belief that children are more than the system would have us believe, more than needing to be bossed about and told what to learn and where.  More than the traditional schooling system. Relationships and time enable us to notice a whole person and respond to that person in ways which are authentic.  And please, don't shout this too loudly, but children can learn without teachers telling them what to do!

That is why I am beginning to feel the way I am, deeply satisfied, like I, together with many others, can actually make a difference.  Like potentially, statistics will be written with positive outcomes, where research acknowledges that earlier isn't necessarily better, where those in poverty are empowered, where success is redefined from the majority viewpoint, where whole communities are changed, where people are living happy lives.

If I was to sum it up?

When children are playing, they are learning.

The perfect play-based learning environment.

There is no such thing as the perfect play-based environment.

As an educator I find myself striving to get to this perfect place.  I have this image of what I think the perfect play-based learning environment should be. Vision is one thing but I don’t think there is a perfect example.   

Sure, I do think there are some big building blocks that are needed in our learning environments to make them work effectively for our learners.   We can all have these building blocks, but they will look different and we will be at different stages developing them.

What would the building blocks be?  

Drivers of learning.

1.  Educators who continue to learn and study.   Inquiring into practice, asking those difficult questions and searching for answers. Trialling new ideas and reflecting individually and as a team.

2.  Educators who have a view of Ākonga (learners) as positive.  We develop positive learner identities. An absolute belief in students, that they are capable now as they are.  We can make known to them their strengths and support them in developing these.  To do this we need to have a non-judgemental attitude towards each learner.  We need to get rid of bias.  Behaviour is a smoke screen. Within every human, there is hope, promise and passion.  It is our job to believe and to make that belief as concrete and obvious as possible.  

3. An environment which is responsive to learners needs.  Space belongs to all of us.  Ākonga know how much we care partly because of our attitude towards the environment in which they learn. How space looks and is set up to operate is a big key. How we look after space and the care in providing interesting and suitable provocations.  We communicate trust by allowing Ākonga to have the power to affect change in their school environment. For example, they can move furniture, put things on the walls, decide what they will learn. We notice and respond.  

4.  A community which has a clear vision of what education is.  This might not be where it stands now, but how it could look.  What is going to make a positive difference to the community?  To get there will be painful because change is uncomfortable, but the right change is worth it.  We want to set our communities free.  I want our Whanau to love learning, to be healthy, confident and full of joy.  It will cost me something to see this happen.

5. A learning community which emphasises values and dispositions.   I was at a business innovation hui last holidays.  I asked a director who offers programmes to young innovators, how young people were achieving.   He said that they had many exceptional ideas, but that wasn't why they couldn't hire them, the problem was the young people didn't know how to make their ideas work.   Things like organisation, self-direction, collaboration and values were lacking. 

6.  A learning community which values process over the product.   In the process lies the learning.  Education in the past valued uniformity, everything looking a certain way, paint colours the same, carefully displayed on the wall.  Everyone producing the same type of writing etc.  Focusing on individual learning leads to diversity. Diversity is to be celebrated. The process will be different depending on the learning goals of each Ākonga.

7.  A collaborative working environment where the team is more important than the individual parts.  It has taken me some time to really understand this.  The journey in working as a truly collaborative team takes humility and authenticity.  It is not easy, but when it begins to work it is truly amazing.  Collaboration is like having a booster rocket.  Individually we can only do so much, together things multiply. 

There is no such thing as a perfect play-based learning environment. Please, feel excited, courageous, and empowered.  You can do it.  Keep going don't give up.  Don't compare yourself with others.   

Play is a paradigm shift

This photo is from my class in 1994.  38 year 5 and 6 students.  One teacher.

We were learning logo, a coding language.  Forward 3, Right 90, Back 5. The turtle was the cursor on the screen that you could programme to move. Seymour Papert designed a real robot turtle that responded to the programme, but they were scarce.  If you look closely there is a crayon taped to the end of the ruler.  That was our turtle and our feet were what moved backwards and forwards.  

I would have done anything for a turtle or a sphero.  They weren't invented in 1994.

Here is the thing,  underpinning the cute Spheros, fancy robots, and bee bots of 2018, is the same thinking that we used without them in the 1990's.   My learners brains still got a workout.  New is not necessarily better.  The thinking is the same.  Our kids have never known life without computers.  Has the system by which we teach learning changed or is it still the same? 

A Paradigm shift is a time when the usual and accepted way of doing or thinking about something changes completely.

I listened as Ali Carr-Chellman shared parts of her Ted Talk at the Energise conference last week.  I totally admire her disruptive ideas, in fact agree with her.  The problem I see is she is trying to make change within a system that is very traditional.  A system that hasn't changed for centuries in America.   So while she does amazing work and while others like her disrupt education, the system stays the same.  

What we need is a complete system change.  

What should we do?

Stop doing some things we have always done just because we've always done them.  

Lets face it, if it doesn't work, or hasn't worked then why would we think by some miracle it might  work now?   Is it because the people who hold power, are the ones that it works for?   With the rapid development of technology, I don't think it will work for much longer.  Can we begin to think of others, those diverse, marginalised, culturally diverse?  Can we not appreciate, value and see success through their eyes?  Can we see ourselves not as individuals but as a collective, a community, intricately connected?  If we work together, collaboratively, society can change.

I have been reflecting on the learning through play facebook page and the reason I started it.  At the time, 2.5 years a go I had begun play based learning but I knew no other primary school using this.  I wanted to trial this idea of learning by using play.  I felt like an adventurer sometimes courageous, but also scared of what people might think, of failing the children and parents.  I didn't know if it would work.... but I had a leader who listened.  A leader who believed in my idea, supported,  resourced, released me to give play in the primary classroom a go.   The facebook page became the fuel to keep me going.  It was a timely, practical way of gaining encouragement, support and ideas to keep going.  It was a innovative thinking tool.  I am forever grateful for this online community and committed to keeping it going for others. 

Often times, leaders are scared of new things.  Sometimes, new things are dressed up as new but really old.  That is the funny thing.... the back to the future thing....  play has been around forever.  Watch a baby learn to walk (no learning objective, WALT or lesson plan). Read Peter Grey's "free to learn" The idea of play is not new, however, why and how we use play in education needs to change.  It can be leveraged to support innovation. 

Innovation, the introduction of something new.  Innovation a driver of change.

What will we do with the Spheros?  Will they lead to new opportunities for Ākonga to learn in different ways, individual specific and engaged?  Or will they be applied with a narrow range of outcomes?  Will we focus on ideas, thinking, and innovation in education?  Will we back our ideas with a budget?  Will we allow teachers to learn through mistakes, to adapt, pivot, and change?  

Collaboration, a driver of change.  Will we actually use it?  Will we be patient while our teams go through the dip of new learning?    

Will we trust our learners?  Will we let them innovate on their online world?  Will we let them develop at different rates, supporting diversification.

Seymour Papert had this to say about education “Nothing bothers me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization. I know. I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.” 

― Seymour Papert

For me play represents a paradigm shift in education.

It looks so disorganised, disruptive, and pointless, so opposite to what most people think learning should be with neat books, lines of pencil-written words, spelling words copied ten times over, children in neat lines walking like clockwork, teachers speaking endless words. But Play. Play is innovation. Play is the very essence of learning. It is the very meaning of change. It could change a system!

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