Safety and Boredom

Have playgrounds become too safe for kids?

An article that came out this morning features an interview with Alex Gilliam from Public Workshop and talks about the lack of opportunities for risk-taking that children have.

Amazing how a big chunk of the hard earned funds that a school or a town obtains for play space can end up buying boring and expensive plastic.  It doesn't take much to engage children with outdoor play, and simplicity and open-ended materials are key, I think.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way.   Teacher Tom has created an outdoor space that encourages risk-taking and experimentation; The Children and Nature Network is dedicated to getting children outside into natural spaces; and I'm sure there are countless others.

How can we convince others that we need to offer something beyond slides and swings?  The more trouble you can potentially get into, the more you learn, I imagine.

No School For Babies

"Direct instruction really can limit young children's learning.  Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific - this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play.  But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions."

Alison Gopnik, Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School

Suing the preschool?

It's difficult to read an article like this - I'm sure there are many opinions on something like this, but unfortunately there is not a discussion happening on The New York Times Website.

The school in question, York Avenue Preschool, states that their curriculum focuses on Social Emotional, Cognitive, Language, and Physical Development.

There are so many factors here - the school, the parent, the child, the classroom community, the standards set by New York State, the family's relationship with the school, the curriculum, the school's image of the child and philosophy on education.

How Preschool Changes the Brain

A little article summarizing a paper by economists, who claim that preschool is the best investment.  The writer cites the Perry Preschool project, but unfortunately makes the statement, "there appears to be nothing special or unique about the Michigan preschool".  I would have to say that the Perry Preschool was quite a bit different than the other preschools of the day, pioneering teaching young children in a hands-on, child-centered context.  But hey, that's just my opinion.

You can read the article here, and if you are eligible for a free download, you can read the paper here.

More information about the Perry Preschool Project is here.

Talk Deeply, Be Happy

"...substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people."

Now that is something nice to hear from The New York Times!  Many of us try and get children to talk deeply, and this, perhaps, is another reason to go beyond surface level conversations: long term happiness.  And to think, I was satisfied with heightened curiosity and deeper understanding!

Attacking the Edible Schoolyard

This piece in The Atlantic is a different view on the edible schoolyard.  This might help to sum up the article:

The cruel trick has been pulled on this benighted child by an agglomeration of foodies and educational reformers who are propelled by a vacuous if well-meaning ideology that is responsible for robbing an increasing number of American schoolchildren of hours they might other wise have spent reading important books or learning higher math (attaining the cultural achievements, in other words, that have lifted uncounted generations of human beings out of the desperate daily scrabble to wrest sustenance from dirt).

How do you feel?  Do you think that we can only advance with "important books" and "higher math", as a departure from our ancestors who scrabbled in the dirt? Or do you feel that we can (gasp!) find a combination of the two?

 

A few places I like to go :

The Edible Schoolyard 

Kids Gardening 

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center 

Seattle Tilth

A Romantic Idea?

"[Bodrova and Leong] say, after all, that play should have a central place in early-childhood classrooms. And they do find fault with the academic approach, arguing that in practice, many of the early-childhood academic initiatives that have been introduced in the No Child Left Behind era have failed to produce any significant improvement in academic skills. At the same time, they don’t agree that the solution is unstructured free play. The romantic idea that children are born with flowering imaginations and a natural instinct for make-believe is simply wrong, they say. Especially these days, they contend, when children spend more time in front of screens and less time in unsupervised play, kids need careful adult guidance and instruction before they are able to play in a productive way."

I'm having some trouble with this one. It is an interesting article, but I had a few moments where I thought, Excuse me? Come again? Like here. If children are not "born with flowering imaginations and a natural instinct for make-believe", I'm not sure where it comes from. In my opinion, our job is to support and enhance those flowering imaginations. And when interest-based, emergent, child-centered curriculum is done wrong, then it can be chaos - teachers should not assume that because they are letting the children lead, they have nothing else to do. It should give you more to do to prepare for the next steps.

Children know how to play. It's what happens when we step back and watch and we don't interfere.

Read it for yourself. What do you think?

The Case for Natural Happiness

I loved this article and I love this picture. I definitely have summer on the brain.


We encourage children to go outside, but do we spend enough time outside? Over my spring break travels, we walked all over cities and small towns rather than getting in the car. Being outdoors is a natural part of my day because I don't have a car. But I'm not getting as much "nature" as I'd like.

If you live in a city, where do you get your "nature" and how often? How do you share nature with your students? If you live in the country, how much time do you spend outdoors?

Bye-bye classroom...

One of the first grade teachers just dropped the Sunday edition of the London Times into my lap after reading this article. The information isn't new, but it is good to see the concept becoming more popular. The article mentions the Secret Garden Outdoor Nursery, where I attended a workshop in January.

It is an interesting article...I will disagree with the "bye bye classroom" title, though -- It may not be your traditional classroom, but there is no less learning going on.

Early Childhood Research and Practice

I make regular visits to the Early Childhood Research & Practice website, waiting for new volumes. They only publish twice yearly, so it was a big treat to see that the Fall 2008 issue had emerged.

I am not sure why, but I have not mentioned that there was a day in September when eleven out of the twenty children in my classroom were in the dramatic play area. One corner of the room was transformed into a buzz of action that included princesses, babies, daddies, puppies, superheroes, and big sisters. I have never had a class that was so attracted to dramatic play! Even now, each day, the area is being used. It is full of open-ended materials that I am always reconsidering.

The new volume of ECRP has three articles on supporting dramatic play, including one on puppets in a special education classroom, and one about a child-based transformation of a dramatic play area into a zoo. Although the programs mentioned differ quite a bit from my own, I think there are some good points and ideas for pretend play.