When I started my career in early childhood, I saw the benefits of children playing. I saw first hand and documented their learning daily. I extended on their curiosities and planned meticulously to enrich their learning through their play environment. When I started my Bachelor’s degree and began learning more about ‘kindergarten programs’ and primary school education, my view shifted. I was being taught about how to teach xyz, the importance of xyz, and the ‘detrimental impact’ not learning to read, write or count etc. at a young age has on a child. Do you see this today? I now see this sort of messaging in our society, social media and mainstream news outlines all the time. But is it accurate? I tried to bring what I was learning into my own Kindergarten programs. I saw parents looking for a service for their child/ren, regularly inquiring about the ‘school readiness program’ I was doing or how their child will meet the demands of school through my regular teachings. I (like a lot of early childhood Teachers) was feeling the pressure to preform and conform to society and provide the necessary ‘school readiness programs’.
Reflecting on this is quite interesting. Children are such unique individuals. They are impacted from their environment and the people raising them, whether that is parents, caregivers, teachers, or coaches. Some children will try to appease their teacher, sit nicely, listen attentively and ‘do the right thing’. Some children are more independent, more honest and will push back if what is being taught is totally irrelevant, uninteresting or unrelatable. Of course there are some children that honestly find what is being taught interesting, relatable and are quite engaged. But how many students on average are in any classroom, whether it is early childhood or primary school? 25-30 kids on average. How many do you think out of 30 children are genuinely engaged, interested and wanting to participate? Not many hey. So when I started to want to bring more structure into my kindergarten classroom (4-5 year old’s), some appeased it, some were intrigued and genuinely wanted to complete set activities or transitions as I was taught these ‘play based learning activities’ were and some really, really disliked this. They fought back and did not want to learn to write, they did not want to learn the alphabet, they did not want learn auslan or listen to a story. What did they want to do? PLAY! Now was what they were doing the previous year in the younger classroom still important and necessary work? Yes. Were the children in that classroom still learning without these ‘necessary school readiness’ programs? Absolutely. They also had less pushback, less arguments and more engagement.
When I went into primary education, I was enjoying but could see the cracks in this system too. I could see again, the students pushing back, the disengagement and the fundamental lack of skills. The lack of fine motor development from a lack of play in their early childhood. The lack of enjoyment in reading from forced requirements, benchmarks and comparative grades. There is so much more to this that can be said but I will leave that to another post.
“…they come into the world with instinctive drives to educate themselves…” (Peter Gray, 2013, p133).
I then had my own children. I watched my eldest grow. He is a boisterous, energetic, sporty, intelligent and strong leader. He is also the type of kid I would continuously see disengaged in my classroom. The child who did not want to participate, could not understand why this curriculum was forced upon him and wanted OUT. How could I put my child in this system? Where would he end up? Principals office? Depressed with his grades, comparatives and social expectations? Bullied for his unique flare and individual identity.
children “are designed, by nature, to play and explore on their own, independently of adults. They need freedom in order to develop; without it they suffer. The drive to play freely is a basic, biological drive” (Peter Gray, 2013).
Being a teacher and parenting a child meant that my first had lots of planned activities, home made resources and lots of ‘play-based learning’. I helped him learn his name at a young age, taught the alphabet and sounds, you know all the things they ‘need to know before school’. Then as ‘school age’ approached, I was apprehensive. I saw all the above mentioned issues in my classroom and saw how they related to my beautiful child. I started reading books by Alfie Kohn, Sir Ken Robinson and John Holt. I listened to podcasts by Wildlings Forest School and Stark Raving Dad and I was drawn to homeschooling. More than that I was drawn to authentic real life learning. I was drawn back to my early childhood education. I remembered how I started my career, helping children learn immersed in play. Helping them extend on their interests and curiosities. I remembered how much I saw them grow and thrive with simple play invitations, carefully curated around their observed interests, questions, and explorations. I remembered how I was more of a guide and facilitator than a teacher, speaking at people. I learned about how my children are autonomous beings that deserve respect, control over their learning. WHOA, was that easy? No. It took a lot of deschooling, a lot of adjustment and trial and error. Do I get it perfect all of the time now? No. I still do trial and error and my children are my greatest teachers. They will tell me what works and doesn’t, what they like and don’t and what interests them or doesn’t. But when I do step back and allow the learning to naturally unfold, I see the very rich and authentic learning happening, when it is right for THEM. Does it really matter what age we attain a milestone? It can be different for everyone, if we are not in a system where we need compliance and we need to be able to teach to a large group, the same information at the same time.
So in conclusion, what is ‘sprouting learning in play’? Well this is a term I have created for where I sit back and observe my children, I witness their interests, their explorations, their play. I have ideas formulate on how I could extend on that in the moment or how I could plan for something to extend on it later in the week or even month, depending on what it is. I see how in the moment I could ‘plant little seeds of learning’ into their game or play. An example of this could be that my children are showing me awesome motorbike tricks with their mini toy motorbikes. They’re flying through the air, doing tricks etc. WOW this is amazing! I can reply with a simple ‘Wow how amazing. Oh I have an idea! We could make a motorbike show! We could sell tickets and everyone can sit down and see all the amazing tricks!’. Sometimes this might work and sometimes it won’t, but this is only one small part of one day. If it doesn’t work, there will be so many more moments to ‘plant those seeds’. Who knows where this could lead? Children writing out money amounts, learning currency, writing skills, letter and number recognition, collaboration with siblings, and bonding relationships. It could even extend into a show that needs play food and play money to buy the food. Maybe they need to get creative and design food for the show, a sign, an ad. The learning could be endless!
I hope this helps you understand a little bit about me, my business and how to find the joy of learning IN play.
References:
- Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn: why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. Basic Books.
