On Play

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
― Fred Rogers

For nearly four months, playgrounds have been closed. My four year old daughter cried for a half hour straight the day her favorite playground had caution tape over the gated entry. After reality set in that this might be for the long haul, she became accustomed to waving to "Gazebo Park" from afar and wondering aloud whether or not the birds and squirrels were appreciating the slides and swings while children took a break from it all. My in-laws immediately offered to buy her a play set for the backyard. I had one as a kid and have fond memories of playing on it - but my adult backyard is an awkward shape without as much open space for the set. Plus, once quarantining is over, the idea of being confined to our own property with our own things....? It's safe to say everyone's had enough of that.

So what's a kid to do in this environment? Well, we began to make new explorations part of our daily routine. Instead of the trip to a designated park where we generally knew what to expect, we would set off on our walks with a different goal in mind; these goals varied from taking pictures to observing insects (and especially ladybugs) to finding sea glass. The attempt has been to find the extraordinary in the ordinary - to focus on what we usually walk right by. When I walked with her, on a whim, to a hundred-plus year old stone bridge in the neighboring town, it awakened an obsession with travelling there a few times a week. Zillow gave us an excuse to walk by interesting homes that we'd already viewed the insides of online. The mini-polaroid camera also provided a new way of looking at things - framing pictures just right to capture the shot she wanted to bring home to "show Dad." 

This week we walked along a fishing pier in the neighboring town, paying close attention to a group of teenage fishermen who had successfully caught a fluke (though were unsuccessfully relieving it of the hook in its mouth without serious damage to the poor thing). On the expanse of beach below the pier that continues to stretch down the bay to the ocean, I watched her scramble up large cement slabs covered in algae without concern for her hands or clothing. She slipped a few times as I looked on. not asking me for help but becoming more insistent that I let her climb even deeper into the rubble so she could "explore." Watching without intervening is hard sometimes, because I worry she will hurt herself, but I also think to the types of risks I took as a child - riding my bike where I was expressly told not to go, taken the shady old trail down through the woods with my all female crew - and know making these sorts of decisions is important for her to experience too. While the playground is missed, I do wonder what is missed when we make that our sole destination. A few years ago, I read about British risk playgrounds that have been designed with these choices in mind -to push small children into making choices about what risks are manageable and which aren't for their ability level. 

Beyond physical endurance and spatial cognizance, the beach-as-playground also allowed for organic discussion about what we were experiencing in the here and now. There were questions about tides, clouds and boats. She inquired why we shouldn't walk into the dune grass and even got to see the birds hopping in and out of the tall blades. She opined that an old tire didn't belong on said beach and wondered how/why someone would dump it there. We examined shells and and dead blue crabs and investigated whether or not two beached horseshoe crabs were indeed alive (one was, one was decidedly not). Seeing life or the remains of life taught her in real time about the cycle we're all in through a much gentler way than a relative or pet dying. These creatures showed her that death was natural and observable at all times, something most Americans avoid acknowledging at all costs. 

The real world is a scary place as we all know. We do our best to manage the risks it presents as adults. When we expose our children to environments outside of the means-tested, well-cultivated ones, we help them to be more prepared for what the real world can throw at them. As a teacher of young adults, I find their exasperation at the myriad current situations understandable - the padded table corners and exclusive playgroups do not translate to these times. They don't buy that everything will go back to normal and be "as it was" because the "as it was" was...well, bullshit. There were always risks, whether or not the adults in their world wanted to expose their children to them or even basically acknowledge their existence. And of course, certain populations have had to grapple with this all along - parents of black and brown teenagers have to have these talks, parents of girls and LGBTQ+ teens as well. To not mention that there might be a bias against your child simply because of their skin color, sexuality or gender would do those children a disservice that could lead to their death (and even with those warnings, it could happen anyhow). 

To resist Fear-based parenting not only recognizes are child are people independent of ourselves, it also allows them the ability to begin to see the world outside the ones we've provided for them as safe spaces to be themselves. It encourages them to 

Finland's education system, again

Look, I know Finland doesn't have "the diversity" the US does, but how do economic , social and/or racial differences play into appropriate programs for the developmental age of children. Piaget didn't say, "Oh, only Swiss children benefit from play and social discovery at young ages."

Sure, there have always been shifts in how children and their education should be viewed - from seeing them as stupid or likely to die and therefore ignorable to mini-adults that can be trained to act properly (think Mozart and his sister). In the wake of the birth of psychology and modern democratic societies, the importance of an educated electorate became more clear. John Dewey's beliefs on education, while liberal compared to many education reforms we see being put into place today, also had the practical purposes of preparing people for life on their own, out in society, both in the here and now AND the future. In an almost Zen-like focus on the present day, Dewey sought to make education in the US beneficial the development of children INTO adulthood, not just for adulthood. On the contrary, today's overall goals for education often seem to be focused on the future. Ends-focused reforms that look to expand the eligible workforce in particular areas, such as STEM fields are not bad. In fact, they are also practical when thinking in the long run. What is not good practice are the reforms that use standardization through testing and curricula to ensure that certain goals will be "measurably" reached.

I am not calling for teachers to have no accountability to some higher standard. What I would like is that teachers, if given a certain benchmark to meet before being hired, such as particular educational requirements (Masters degree, classroom experience, etc), should be entrusted to know what is going to work in their classroom for their students. With the additional layer of actual supervisory guidance (and not check the box, standardized observational systems), teachers can grow their practice into an art, rather than be penalized for a random assortment of missed checked boxes on a rubric. All of this reminds me of the scene in "Uncle Buck" where Buck goes to talk about his niece's progress in 1st grade:

The VP's attitude is not uncommon in public education. The desire to mold children into good little citizens from day one seems to be, for people of this mindset, something that is done through having children sit in one place for a long time beginning at a young age. Some children ARE predisposed to sit and listen, others are not. In fact, many are not, especially in early elementary education.It can be argued that sitting and not doing actually impairs their ability TO learn.

Today, we know so much (and still so little) about how the human brain and body function - more so than any other time in human history, and yet, we still continue to stuff everyone into the same sort of boxes that continue to fail percentages of the population. No one is asking the education system to wholly embrace Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences" model as scientifically tried and true, but by just being in the world, anyone observant enough can see that people approach problems in different ways. What always kills me about many of the administrators that I come across is that they will spout the importance of differentiated instruction and respect for various learners in the classroom while forcing their faculty to act in lock step. The panopticon-style, mass institutionalization of children will lead to the ultimate end of public education in the US in two ways- it will crush children's ability to adapt through being able to explore, try and fail in the safe confines of a classroom and it will eradicate a teacher's capacity to creatively express the importance of sociocultural and content based learning.

For those who see this as another "public school teacher complaining about shit" post, well maybe consider this- it will also contribute to an electorate who votes in an extremist- whether you see that as Trump OR Sanders- due to their 'tiredness' of the establishment.