Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Joan Almon and the Vital Importance of Play


Dear Nursery and Parent & Child Families,

We are approaching two weeks off from our nursery and parent & child program.  After these breaks, I discover and marvel at (though it happens every year) the new ideas, patterns, imaginations, social flexibilities, occasional social sticking points to work through, and the like that young children bring into the classroom (and the outdoor play spaces as well).  It reminds me of Joan Almon, one of my favorite Wise Women of Waldorf education, a former kindergarten teacher and public speaker who has warmth and love effervescing from every bit of her being when she is with you or speaking to you in a crowd.  You can see her in the video (for adults) "Where Do the Children Play."  Like Glenda Moore, Almon celebrates the manner in which our loving work as adults can animate and enliven the play of the children in our care.

She has written and revised her article about play many times to include new research.  Her version below (which comes from http://www.waldorfearlychildhood.org/article.asp?id=5) seems a particularly effective one. 

The Vital Role of Play in Childhood
Joan Almon
"The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health." Ashley Montagu
The Universal Nature of Play

In over 30 years of working with young children, families, and teachers in Waldorf kindergartens all over the world, I have observed one consistent feature of childhood: creative play is a central activity in the lives of healthy children. Play helps children weave together all the elements of life as they experience it. It is an outlet for the fullness of their creativity, and it is an absolutely critical part of their childhood. The unique qualities of each child become apparent in the way they play. Some cultural differences emerge, for children imitate what they see around them and play it out. But there are strong universal qualities in play. For example, three-year-olds around the world play in similar ways; their play is different from that of five- or six-year-olds.

The universal nature of play is evident. One can speak of the language of play that unites young children all over the world. It is fascinating to watch children from different countries playing together. Although they may not be able to speak one word of the other's language, they can play together for hours. They enter a common realm where the external differences of language and culture are small compared to the vast similarities embedded in the child's inner urge to play.

Although play is a steady part of healthy children's lives, it is not easy to define what play is. I prefer to think of it as a bubbling spring of health and creativity within each child—and, for that matter, within every human being. Sometimes this spring seems to stop flowing, but it remains at the heart of every human being and, with a bit of effort, the blockages can be cleared away and a creative, playful spirit can flow again. This can happen at any age.

When young children are ill they often stop playing for a few days. As soon as they are better, their parents notice the spark of play shining in their eyes again. In general, when children are able to play creatively, they blossom and flourish. If they stop playing over an extended period of time, they can suffer a decline and even become depressed or show signs of other illnesses.

Play is of central importance in a child's life. This is well supported by decades of research, some of which is described in this article.

Despite its central importance in children's healthy development, play—in the creative, open-ended sense in which I use the term—is now seriously endangered in the United States and many other countries. It is being pushed out of children's lives for a number of reasons. I will mention four:

1. Children have become dependent on electronic entertainment: television, videos, and computers. U.S. children spend three to five hours per day in front of screens outside school hours. This leaves little time or inclination for real play. When media-filled children do play, it is naturally full of media characters and stories. It becomes increasingly hard for children to make up their own creative stories in play, for their imaginations have been overpowered by what they have seen on the screen. In extreme cases children are fixated on these screen images and will not allow any changes in the story they are playing out.

2. Kindergarten programs in the U.S. focus so strongly on teaching literacy, numeracy, and other academic subjects that many children no longer have time to play in kindergarten. Many kindergartens are now full day. In a typical six-hour public kindergarten in the New York or Washington area, for instance, children spend ninety minutes per day on early literacy drills, sixty minutes on mathematics, and thirty minutes on science. They have about thirty minutes for outdoor play but no time for indoor play. They have music once a week, art once a week, and a few other subjects. In Montgomery County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., I have been told that the word "play" does not appear at all in the kindergarten curriculum.

3. This academic approach to early learning is shifting downward. Three- and four-year-olds are now expected to engage in far more early writing and reading activities than ever before. Head Start, the U.S. federal program for low-income children, was forced to revise its curriculum this year to make more time for early literacy and less time for play. Children will be assessed on their overall gains and programs will be evaluated according to how the children do. Since it is difficult, although not impossible, to assess children on how well they play, normal assessments focus on how many letters and numbers children know, and how many of the basic steps in literacy and numeracy they have taken.

4. The amount of time spent in sports and other organized activities for young children has increased greatly in the past thirty years, beginning with pre-schoolers, so that children have little time for their own play activities.

Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, a noted child and adolescent psychiatrist who is concerned about the demise of play and of family time, recently quoted these statistics:

This over-scheduled family style has insinuated itself into the fabric of our family lives. In the past twenty years, structured sports time has doubled, unstructured children's activities have declined by 50%, household conversations have become far less frequent, family dinners have declined 33%, and family vacations have decreased by 28% (Rosenfeld, 2004).

Given the importance of play for children's physical, social, emotional, and mental development, the demise of play will certainly have serious consequences during childhood and throughout children's lives. Indeed, there is growing concern about what kind of society we are creating if a generation of children grow up without play and the creative thinking that emerges from play. Can democracy survive if creative thinking dies out?

I have observed the steady decline of play over the past thirty years, but even I was astonished by a recent call from a counselor in an elementary school near Washington. She had been talking with a first-grade class and used the word "imagination." When they stared blankly at her, she explained its meaning, but the children continued to look puzzled. She gave an example from her own childhood when she loved to play Wonder Woman. She would put on a cape, she said, and run down the hill near her house with arms outstretched, pretending to be aloft. "That's imagination, when you pretend to be someone you're not," she explained to the children.

"But we don't know how to do that," said one child, and all the others nodded their heads in agreement. Not one child in that first grade seemed to know what imaginative play was.

What Research Tells Us about Play

There has been a great deal of research about play over many decades. In general the research shows strong links between creative play and language, physical, cognitive, and social development. According to researcher Sara Smilansky, children who show the greatest capacities for social make-believe play also display more imagination and less aggression, and a greater ability to use language for speaking and understanding others (Smilansky, p. 35).

Research in Germany in the 1970s showed that by fourth grade children who had attended play-oriented kindergartens surpassed those from academic-oriented kindergartens in physical, social, emotional, and mental development. The findings were so compelling that Germany switched all its kindergartens back to being play-oriented (Der Spiegel, pp. 89-90).

In the U.S. the research of the High/Scope Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan is often cited. There, sixty-nine low-income children, ages three and four, who were considered to be at risk of future school failure were divided into three groups. One, called the High/Scope group, was offered a program with much child-initiated activity, including play. Another, called the Direct Instruction group, received much instruction in academic subjects. The third, called the Nursery Program, was a combination of the other two. As the children grew up, those who had been in the High/Scope and Nursery programs succeeded in school and life significantly better than the children in the more academic, Direct Instruction program. At age fifteen, the following results were noted:

Initially, all three curriculum approaches improved young children's intellectual performance substantially, with the average IQs of children in all three groups rising twenty-seven points. By age fifteen, however, students in the High/Scope group and the Nursery School group. . . reported only half as much delinquent activity as the students in the Direct Instruction group. . . (High/Scope).

By the time the children had grown up and were age twenty-three, the research continued to point to a much higher success level for those who had been able to play in nursery school. The High/Scope and Nursery School groups showed gains over the Direct Instruction group on seventeen different variables. At a time when young people in the U.S. are going to prison in record numbers, I think it is especially important to note that the Direct Instruction group had significantly more felony arrests than the other two groups. They also had had more years of special education for emotional impairment, and their level of schooling did not rise as high as the youngsters from the High/Scope group.

A recent study by Rebecca Marcon of the University of North Florida found results similar to those of High/Scope when children from different preschool programs were followed through fourth grade. Those who had attended play-oriented programs where child-initiated activities predominated did better academically than those who had attended academic-oriented programs (Marcon).

I would have thought that such research alone would convince educators, parents and policymakers that it is foolish—and even dangerously unhealthy—to immerse three- and four-year-olds in direct instruction programs. Yet these programs are gaining favor throughout the United States. The president and Congress have set the highest levels ever for academic achievement for Head Start children, and have supported legislation that would influence all pre-school programs to move in this direction.

Recent research looks at how young children learn in terms of brain development. This new research does not seem to produce radical new findings about play and learning. Rather, it confirms that the healthy essentials of childhood, including forming trusting relations with caring adults and exploring the world through play, movement, language, and hands-on activities, are in fact essential.

Brain researchers continually remind us that the brain is not an isolated organ in the body. It is linked to everything else—to language, to movement, to social and emotional experiences. Thus, when the hands, the eyes, the ears, or the heart are being stimulated through life activity, so is the brain.

Dr. Frank Wilson, a neurologist at Stanford University who has specialized in working with performing artists with hand problems, makes the point that an unusually large part of the brain is linked to the human hand. Thus, if you want to stimulate the brain, get children involved in hands-on activities. He is concerned that children today use their hands primarily for computer operations. He does not consider this to be true hands-on learning and is concerned that the brain is actually under-stimulated in ways that really count. Wilson says, "I would argue that any theory of human intelligence which ignores the interdependence of hand and brain function, the historic origins of that relationship, or the impact of that history on developmental dynamics in modern humans, is grossly misleading and sterile" (Wilson, p. 7).

Jane Healy, a learning expert who has written extensively about brain development and about computer use in childhood, emphasizes the need for children to move their bodies and to be engaged in nature and in life. At birth the brain has the capacity to learn to walk, run, jump, and do a host of other things. But the capacity in the brain develops only if the child actually does these things and doesn't just watch them being done on a screen. The brain is waiting to be awakened, but it needs a multi-sensory, enriched environment to be awakened (Healy, p. 177).

It is important to note here that an enriched environment does not mean an over-stimulating environment. It means a normally enriched environment. My experience is that children thrive when given space for indoor and outdoor play and have a sense of comfort from knowing that a caring adult is nearby, preferably doing things like gardening, woodwork, cooking, or cleaning. These life activities stimulate children's play. Add some basic play materials like logs, stones, cloths, and ropes, from which they can fashion their own toys, plus some artistic materials for self-expression, and a healthy scattering of stories, songs, and verses, and you quickly have a playful child.

Under-stimulation, such as I have seen in very poor kindergartens in Africa, is a problem, but so is over-stimulation, which I see in nearly every kindergarten in the United States. Children need a calm and lovely environment, full of warm-hearted human beings who create a sense of security, are engaged in meaningful activity, and provide children with a reasonable amount of materials that can be used in dozens of different ways.

Some research shows a direct link between play and the development of mathematical abilities. Ranald Jarrell of the University of Arizona reports that "play is vital to the development of children's mathematical thinking. Unlike some forms of knowledge, mathematical knowledge, which deals with the relationships between and among things, cannot be learned by hearing adults talk about it. Experimental research on play shows a strong relationship between play, the growth of mathematical understanding, and improved mathematical performance" (Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, p. 220).

As mentioned above, Sara Smilansky found strong evidence that the children who were best able to engage in sociodramatic play, that is, who could play with others in make-believe activities, also showed the greatest gains in many forms of language and social development. She also found that the more advanced players developed more imagination and were less aggressive (Klugman and Smilansky, p. 35).

The development of problem-solving skills has also been linked to play. One type of these skills is called "convergent," where there is one solution to a problem. The other is "divergent," where there are many possible ways to solve a problem. Both are needed in life. The former is what is measured on most standardized tests, which have a single correct answer to a question. Increasingly it is the type of thinking we educate children for. But the second type is what is often called for by life. Complex social, political, or economic questions rarely have just one clear-cut answer.

In Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, the authors report on a simple but impressive piece of research. One group of three-year-olds, led by a child named Amala, was given convergent materials to play with, including puzzles and other toys that have just one right way to be used. Michael's group was given blocks and other divergent play materials that can be used in many ways. Then both groups were asked to build a village with forty-five pieces of the play materials that Michael's group had been using.

Researchers watched both groups to see how many structures they built and how many names they created for their structures. Michael's group built more structures and had more diverse names for them. When they had problems with the task they did not give up but found new solutions. They used trial and error a lot.

"Amala's group acted very differently," the authors write. "Having played with convergent toys they had one right answer, they got stuck and did the same things over and over again when they couldn't do a divergent problem. They also gave up more quickly than Michael's group. It was as if they had learned that problems have a single answer. . . " The authors go on to point out that school generally teaches children to answer questions correctly. But play teaches children to think "outside the box." If one wants children to grow up with creative capacities, then play is essential. "Where does creativity come from?" ask the authors. "From play—good old unmonitored, unstructured free and open play" (Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, pp. 223-224).

A similar link between play and creativity in adulthood was researched by Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist then working in Texas. He interviewed prisoners who were incarcerated for murder or very aggressive driving that had resulted in a death and found that these prisoners did not have a history of play in their lives. In contrast, when he interviewed winners of the MacArthur "genius" award, a prestigious prize given to creative individuals in a wide range of fields by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, he found that nearly all had a rich history of play from childhood onwards.

In all, Brown interviewed about 8,000 people. What they told him confirmed his conclusion that healthy, varied play in childhood is necessary "for the development of empathy, social altruism and . . . a repertoire of social behaviors enabling the player to handle stress. It fosters curiosity, is a major catalyst to learning, and through long acquaintance with playful imagination, gives angry provoked individuals alternatives to acting impulsively and violently" (Stuart Brown, web site).

Animal Research Linking Play and Brain Development

A number of researchers have looked at the relationship between play and brain size. John Byers of the University of Idaho compared the playful wombats with the more docile koala bears and found that the wombats had bigger brains per body weight. When he and other researchers tracked the actual rates of brain growth from infancy to maturity in different animal types, they found correlations between periods of rapid brain growth and periods of more active play (cited in Furlow, 2001).

There is no certainty yet as to why play and brain size may go together. One explanation is that the most active periods of play may correlate with times when more synapses are forming in the brain. Synapses are the connections that develop between neighboring neurons. Another explanation is that play may stimulate the development of myelin, a fatty substance that allows nerves to transmit more complex information than they can while uncoated.

Researchers tend to be cautious in their conclusions and so also point out that perhaps there is not a direct correlation between play and brain growth. Both might be stimulated by another factor such as metabolism. More research is needed, but meanwhile there is a growing sense that play and brain growth are in fact related.

Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado studied coyote pups at play. He found that their behavior was much more varied and unpredictable than that of adults. He reasons that acting in this way activates many parts of the brain and that their brains receive a great deal of stimulation from their playful behavior. Bekoff concludes that "play creates a brain that has greater behavioral flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life." He also states that "people have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play." He adds that there is enormous cognitive development in play (cited in Furlow).

The Relationship of Play to Health

As an early childhood teacher, I was struck by how often parents said things like this to me: "My child was sick, but it wasn't too serious. He played the whole time." Or they might say, "She was really sick and didn't play at all." Unconsciously they were associating play with health. There is a great wisdom in this.

The relationship was confirmed for me by the psychiatrist Stuart Brown. As a young intern he worked with very ill children in hospitals where one often did not know if the children would live or die. He noticed that sometimes he would enter the room of a very sick child, but the child would have a playful gleam in his or her eye for the first time. He found consistently that this was an indication of a return to health (Brown, State of World Forum).

Many other experts on play also point to the relationship between children's overall health and their ability to play. Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado says play is a sign of healthy development. He adds, "When play drops out, something is wrong." He adds that we have become a "play-less society" and points to problems such as the prevalence of organized sports rather than spontaneous play and the fact that school is beginning earlier and is becoming increasingly exam-oriented. If these trends continue, there is even less likelihood that children will be given time to play in the future (cited in Furlow, 2001).

Bryant Furlow, writing in New Scientist, expresses concern about the relationship between play and mental health: "Children destined to suffer mental illnesses such as schizophrenia as adults, for example, engage in precious little social play early in life. But can a lack of play affect the creativity and learning abilities of normal children?" No one knows for sure, but there is a growing concern that play is disappearing from childhood and that this will affect children's physical, social, and emotional health. Furlow points out that when "rat pups are denied the opportunity to play [they] grow smaller neocortices and lose the ability to apply social rules when they do interact with their peers" (Furlow, 2001).

Implications for the Future

If imaginative free play continues to disappear from childhood, I anticipate several serious outcomes:

• An increase in mental illness beginning in childhood.

• Difficulties in the way children socialize and communicate with each other, including more aggression in social relationships.

• A change in the development of thinking with a loss of divergent thinking and a growing emphasis on convergent thinking.

Already there is serious concern about increases in mental illness in childhood, including depression, hyperactive disorders, and anxiety disorders. The World Health Organization of the United Nations reports that by the year 2020 childhood neuropsychiatric disorders will rise proportionately by over 50 percent, internationally, to become one of the five most common causes of morbidity, mortality, and disability among children (Surgeon General, 2001).

There is also a growing concern among teachers, psychologists, and others that children's social capacities are weakening. In general, technologically developed countries place such an emphasis on intellectual achievement that they forget how critical social abilities are. We are now seeing extreme situations, the cause of which is not yet known, such as the increase in Asperger syndrome and other forms of autism. The state of California reported a 210 percent increase in autism between 1987 and 1998, and the median age of patients dropped from fifteen to nine years (California Department of Developmental Services, p. 10). Many feel that the increase in autism may be emblematic of a more widespread problem—the growth of a social type of autism caused by too many hours staring at screens instead of interacting with humans in play and other ways, as well as other factors. This situation is not yet documented and needs research.

The example of Amala and Michael above showed how creative play is linked to open-ended divergent thinking. If one does not develop this type of exploratory, open-ended thinking, how does one approach today's social, political, economic, and ecological problems? Not many of our complex contemporary issues can be solved with a simple right or wrong answer. Most are far more intricate and require trial and error and a willingness to keep going through difficulties until one comes to the best solution possible. I am very concerned that without opportunities for open-ended, imaginative play, our children will not be capable of this type of creative thinking as they grow older. Modern democratic processes call for complex divergent thinking, and without it the tendency to favor authoritarian decision-making, where one person says what is right or wrong, grows much greater. We may well become a society with a narrow orientation to problem solving. When situations are not easily resolved, we may become more inclined to resort to aggression and violence, rather than complex problem solving.

I cannot help but wonder whether the politicians who are pushing for early literacy and other forms of direct instruction for three- to six-year-olds are simply ignorant of the importance of play, or whether they would prefer a populace whose creative thinking and social capacities are impaired. Such a populace would find it harder to participate in a diverse, democratic society, and might well opt to be ruled by a government with a strong hand.

Restoring Play

There are many steps that can be taken to restore play to children's lives, but here are a few:

1. Leading educators, health professionals, and other child advocates need to work together to examine the role of play in childhood and the ways in which it is endangered. Their findings need to be publicized as widely as possible, with an emphasis on what children need for healthy development.

The formation of commissions of prominent experts needs to be done as quickly as possible, for there are many countries at this time that are on the brink of eliminating play in early childhood education in favor of direct instruction of academic subjects for young children. The experience in the United States is that once this change happens, it is very difficult to reverse the process. The U.S. has offered academic instruction to five-year-olds in kindergartens for 30 years. There is no evidence that it has worked, and there is much concern that it has caused great harm. Nonetheless, rather than admitting failure, policymakers are now insisting that one start teaching reading through direct instruction to three- and four-year-olds. They believe that the younger one begins the better, despite research and experience that prove the opposite.

In 2002, the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee prepared legislation to support preschool programs for three- and four-year-olds. Such financial support is badly needed, but the legislation was controversial. In part, it called for healthy steps toward a holistic approach to early childhood education, but it also repeatedly called for early literacy and offered bonuses to states that could show gains in "kindergarten readiness." These gains would almost certainly need to be shown in academic areas, as few programs assess children's gains in social and emotional development. The Alliance for Childhood issued a statement of concern that was signed by leading educators and health professionals and was distributed in the Senate and to other government officials (Alliance for Childhood).

2. Parents, educators, and health professionals need to become activists on behalf of young children and engage directly in the development of healthy approaches to early childhood education.

At present, in the United States and other countries, politicians have actively entered the realm of early childhood education and are insisting that early childhood programs promote early literacy and numeracy at the expense of child-initiated activity. This needs to be countered by grassroots and other forms of activism in every community and in every preschool and kindergarten program. Research and experience clearly show what young children actually need for balanced, healthy development. It is time that the fruits of that research and experience are implemented in every early childhood setting. To do anything else is to promote the miseducation of children.

3. Develop large-scale public education campaigns to help parents and professionals understand the importance of play and how to strengthen children's play.

Most early childhood teachers in the U.S., for instance, receive little or no training in helping children play. Since the play patterns of children are already disturbed, simply encouraging children to play is often not enough. Teachers and parents need workshops, literature, videos, and other educational tools to help them support children in play.

4. Parents and community leaders need to work together to create safe play spaces for children.

Children need play spaces where they can run in the grass, roll down hills, and, if possible, play in a stream or fountain. Such play spaces need some adult supervision at a paid or volunteer level. Just as parents now volunteer to coach sports, they can be encouraged to volunteer to supervise free play spaces and receive training on how to do this. A starting place is to organize a play day in a neighborhood or community (International Play Association).

Conclusion

Research and experience show strong relationships between a child's capacity to play and his or her overall development—physical, social, emotional, and intellectual. There is reason to be deeply concerned that as play disappears from childhood children will suffer in all these areas. In many countries, play is diminishing and the first indications of such suffering are becoming apparent. Yet nation after nation is rushing toward removing play from young children's lives in the misguided belief that three- to six-year-olds are ripe and ready for direct instruction in early literacy and other academic subjects. For the sake of the children, and for the sake of the society they are part of, this direction needs to be reversed now and play needs to be restored as a healthy essential of childhood.

(Parts of this article are adapted from one that appeared in the book All Work and No Play, Sharna Olfman, editor, Praeger, 2003.)

__________________

References:

Alliance for Childhood. "Children from birth to five: A statement of first principles on early education for educators and policymakers." Retrieved 1.29.03 from http://www.allianceforchildhood.com/projects/play/index.htm

Brown, Stuart (1999). State of the World Forum, Whole Child Roundtable, San Francisco.

Brown, Stuart. "About us: Stuart Brown, Founder of the Institute for Play". Retrieved 3.14.04 from http://www.instituteforplay.com/13stuart_brown.htm.

California Department of Developmental Services (1999). Changes in the population of persons with autism and PDD's in California's developmental services system: 1987-1998. A report to the legislature. Retrieved 1.29.03 from http://www.dds.cahwnet.gov/autism/pdf/autism_report_1999.pdf

Der Spiegel (1977). (German news magazine, No. 20).

Furlow, Bryant (2001). "Play's the Thing," New Scientist, No. 2294, p. 28; http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=1&id=mg17022944.600

Healy, Jane (1998). Failure to Connect. (New York: Simon and Schuster)

High/Scope Summary. "Different effects from different preschool models: High/Scope

preschool curriculum comparison study." Drawn from works by Schweinhart, L. J., &

Weikart, D. P., et. al. Retrieved 1.29.03 from http://www.highscope.org/Research/curriccomp.htm

Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy and Roberta Michnik Golinkoff (2003). Einstein Never Used Flash Cards. Rodale.

International Play Association, USA. "What is a Playday?" Retrieved 3.10.04 from http://www.ipausa.org/playday.htm

Marcon, Rebecca A. (2002, Spring). Moving up the grades: Relationship between preschool model and later school success. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 4, (1), [Electronic Version].

Montagu, Ashley (1981). Growing Young. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Olfman, Sharna (2003). All Work and No Play: How educational reforms are harming our preschoolers. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Rosenfeld, Alvin, M.D. From a talk at Rodeph Shalom School, New York, NY and sent to the Alliance by Dr. Rosenfeld on February 27, 2004.

Smilansky, Sara (1990). Sociodramatic play: Its relevance to behavior and achievement in school. In E. Klugman & S. Smilansky (Eds.), Children's Play and Learning. New

York: Teacher's College Press.

Surgeon General (2001). Summary of conference on children's mental health. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved 1.29.03 from http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/cmh/childreport.htm#sum

Wilson, Frank (1998). The Hand. New York: Pantheon.

Joan Almon is the Coordinator of the U.S. branch of the Alliance for Childhood. She is a former Waldorf kindergarten teacher in North America and has worked internationally as a consultant to Waldorf educators and training programs.


 

 

 

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

In Praise of Pirates

Dear Nursery Families,

Over the last 2 weeks I have been impressed by the growing richness and complexity of the social and imaginative play of our five children in class.  There are moments when all 5 children are involved, working towards the same end.  Sometimes this goal is a martial one (pirates building a ship, ready for a raid), sometimes a constructive one (building a truck or space ship). 

With increasing frequency parallel and unrelated scenarios can blossom in the classroom.  There can now be pirates and a mom tending to her babies, both scenarios can be engaged and in the flow, and the pirates need not raid the mom and the babies.

This potential politeness of pirates puts my peregrinating thoughts on prose I penned a few years ago.  I reprise it below.


Falling Cradles, Pirates, and Sewing up the Wolf's Belly
Beginning but Not Necessarily Polite Thoughts on Different Ways of Taking Metaphor


Rock-a-bye baby in the treetop.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Over the years, some parents have expressed concern/distaste with the above lullaby.  Who wants to sing about babies falling from trees?  While as a teacher, I can recommend reading Rahima Baldwin or others to receive a more spiritual interpretation of the song (it describes our descent from the spiritual world to the earthly world.  It comforts us with the notion that some of our spiritual trappings--cradle and all--come down to earth with us to accompany us in life.  The enduring popularity of this otherwise tragic lullaby testifies to the beyond-realistic power of it), if the song still bothers you as a parent, don't sing it to your child.  At the same time, I ask that parents hold open the possibility that the lullaby can be nurturing in a classroom setting if the teacher's image or metaphor behind is one of healing and nurturing.

For years, it bothered me when children pretended to be pirates.  Sometimes it was because their play was so media-driven (this still bothers me, as it should bother you), but also because it felt to me that children were learning to pretend to be pirates before pretending to be sailors, a bit like children learning "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, Robin Laid an Egg" before learning the more traditional lyrics to the song (this still bothers me and I plan to lecture/write about this more next year in a talk entitled "A Black Fly in Your Chardonnay: The Importance of Being Earnest With Young Children").  "Why can't children find satisfaction in being sailors?" I thought.  Recently I attended an exhibit on "Real Pirates" at the Field museum in Chicago which changed my thinking a lot.  There I learned (and I am not an expert) of how atrocious the owners of ships and their captains were to the common sailor--who were poorly treated and often unpaid at the end.  The "good" official ships of European countries were heavily involved in the slave trade.  These ships also had unclear rules dictated from above with harsh punishments.  Racism prevailed.  On pirate ships, in contrast, democracies and a clear code of conduct emerged.  Pirates voted in their ruling members of the ship.  They drew up codes of conduct together.  The captain of a pirate ship received only twice as much pay as the lowest paid member of the ship (just about everybody got paid the same).  Pirates freed slaves and welcomed freed slaves into their ranks.  Their crews came from many countries and spoke many languages.  While it seems like my goal here is to apologize for piracy (not my intent; I know real pirates still exist and threaten lives at sea; one could, of course, begin the difficult conversation of asking if  current governments have changed from sufficiently from the Imperialist slave traders of the past, but again, this is another conversation), my realization is far less profound and more personal.  This experience has subtly but powerfully altered the way I might respond to pirate play by children, ways I might extend the play with simple phrases, ways I might foster social inclusion, ("Did you know pirates welcomed anyone on their ship who wanted to help?" "Did you know pirate captains were sure to share the treasure with everyone on the ship?"), and ways I might live comfortably and effectively with this sort of play in the classroom.

I often write and speak about the metaphor of teaching or parenting as being a confident captain.  Winds, seas, and storms may delay us from our course, and we must accept this.  Crews (our children) may mutiny.  At the same time, we still seek our course with strength and flexibility.  We want our crew to have faith in us--so we are both confident (our children know we are in charge) and observant (our children see that we see them and are trying to meet their needs even as we are in charge).  In the exhibit on pirates, I learned that when pirates took over a ship (which they often did without needing to shed any blood or fire any cannons), they gathered the crew of the captured ship and asked them if their captain was a good leader or not.  If the crew said their captain was a despot or bad leader, the captain was killed.  If they said the captain was a confident and good leader, the pirates rewarded that captain with treasure and a ship of his own (pirates often travelled with a number of ships, so they had one to give away).  Now as I teach or parent, I feel very comfortable asking the hypothetical question, if pirates took over and asked my class or my own children whether I was a good captain or not, would I be killed or rewarded with a ship of my own?  I could imagine other teachers or parents would find it very unsavory to chart the course of their classroom or family life with the image that their life or death depends on it, and I would never recommend this to someone else.  But it does work for me, and I take it with equanimity, not fear.

"The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" is one of my favorite stories for older nursery or young kindergarten classes.  I knew the deceitful wolf could be very disturbing to parents and some children, but I was surprised at a parent meeting to learn that the old goat's use of scissors to cut open the wolf's belly and needle and thread to sew it up again (once her kids had filled it with heavy stones) came across as very violent, even sadistic.  Now I see that of course it does (or can).  To me it had always seemed a symbolic and healthy balance to some children's (more often boys though not exclusively) tendency to get stuck in gun and sword play--an interest in engaging in the world offensively and only from a distance.  Only guns and weapons seem to have power for children stuck in this developmental phase.  Here, I thought, is a story that symbolically suggests the power in the tools we might associate with a grandmother or kindergarten teacher or brave little tailor--scissors, needle, thread.  My point is not to beat swords into plowshares and then bash our enemies on the head with our plowshares, but rather to open the possibility that power--rather than something to be afraid of--can come from many aspects and archetypes and from within many aspects ourselves.  My reading of this particular fairy tale is highly symbolic and very free from the tangible, and many children receive it that way.  I am not demanding that parents interpret the story in the way that I do, just opening the possibility that we can see the same rhyme, song, or tale very differently and make different choices about it.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Calendar Reminders/Work in Early Childhood



CALENDAR REMINDERS

No class for nursery of parent & child class on Friday, March 23.  It is Grandparent's Day.  If a grandparent does wish to attend for a special early childhood experience (8:45ish to 9:45ish), please let me know yesterday--or the first Monday after St. Patrick's Day.

Our young children, with their parents and/or grandparents, may well enjoy the Rainbow Circus assembly at 11am on the 23rd at Huckleberry Hall (right in sight of the Butterfly Room).  Check the school's newsletter on Sunday night for more information.

Our final classes for nursery and parent & child before a 2 week spring break will be on March 29 (nursery) and March 30 (parent & child).  Please remember that the nursery is closed along with the kindergartens on April 2 - 4 even though the elementary grades are in session.


WORK AND PLAY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

With delight I rediscovered an article by Glenda Moore (experienced kindergarten teacher) that informed much of my work and parent education when I was a green nursery and parent & child teacher a decade ago.  I have been listening to many Rudolf Steiner lectures recently (rudolfsteineraudio.com), and I find I stand bolt upright whenever Steiner emphasizes the importance of intentionally engaging in meaningful and beautiful and practical work in the presence of young children, much like whenever the Shepherds hear or speak the word "wolf" in the Oberufer Shepherds Play.  Over the years and over recent weeks, making work accessible and joyful and lawful and loving has been a path with which I have encountered more or less success, chances for improvement, chances to watch my hair gray, chances to take deep breaths, and the like.  Each group of child (and parents), in concert with the varying physical spaces, seems to evoke a different array of tasks that provide nourishment.  I find myself doing the dance of finding that just right balance between being too rigid ("What do you mean ironing isn't nourishing this group of children!  It has always worked for me") and potentially breaking one of Nancy Foster's commandments by yielding to whim of a child or parent or me ("Am I giving up on this task just because I am bored?  Or because this child, who really needs me to be in charge, is testing me to see if I will stay in charge?").

Compromise and logistics give me pleasure--with occasional consternation, and not infrequent joy.  I have been pleased with the way, for example, Lynne and the children and I have tended the garden in front of our nursery room.  It has never quite flowed naturally to have the whole class work or play right in the garden (not being in a play-yard but as a gateway to a more wide-open elementary playground), so finally we had Lynne or me take 2 children outside early to assist, while the other teacher washed dishes inside and guided the tidying up of the room.  After experiments of floor care that provided varying nourishment (some of you will remember the frequency with which children pulled apart the Bissells to wield the handle as a weapon; I was wise enough to remove them completely in setting up the current nursery children for social success), I am pretty happy with a hi-tech yet simple and sturdy rubber broom that actually gets sand and dirt out of a carpet.  Sweeping is such a lovely activity to bathe children in.  I find myself make judgment calls about how much imagination I allow children to use with the broom.  It is a dance:  my sense is that we as adults benefit when we imbue our work with more of a sense of play (while retaining reverence), and I know of studies in which children solve problems better if they are allowed to play freely with problem solving tools, yet the benefits of bathing children in the real work of sweeping are lost if the broom is always squirreled away as a rifle in a fort.

What follows is Moore's article, which I found at this address 


Work and Play in the Home and Waldorf KindergartenAs adults we often find a feeling of distaste creeping into our attitude about work. I saw a bumper sticker that illustrated this perfectly - "The worst day fishing is better than the best day working," it said. Enlivening the repetitive homemaking tasks (cooking, washing dishes, cleaning windows) can provide a special challenge.  So we develop feelings about our necessary tasks that lead us to wish for more 'play' time and a dichotomy between work and play develops within us. The young child has no such duality in his/her being. Work and play form a marvelous, flowing lemniscates. Play is the joyful out breathing inspired by the working grown-ups who surround the child.  Work, the inbreathing, becomes creative and joyous activity, indistinguishable from play. When we hurry to finish our work so we can 'play' with our child, or always respond to the insistent demands to 'play with me' on the child's level, we have given up a precious opportunity to help our child answer a most important question - how do we live upon the earth?In the Waldorf kindergarten, we work thoughtfully with this question, bringing knowledge to the children, not through our words and intellect, but through our deeds, our rhythmic working through the days and weeks - for we know that the children learn through imitation, through doing. Therefore the grown-ups are nearly always engaged in some useful task - sewing, cleaning, cooking, gardening; even visitors are given some handwork to do. And yet mere outward busyness is not really the aim at all; there can often be a frantic and goal-oriented quality to our work that sweeps the present out of our consciousness. A poem, penned by some anonymous hand, presents an ideal picture of work.  

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love,  

But only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work 

And sit at the gate of the temple and
Take alms from those who work with joy. 

Certainly, while we live upon the earth, there are few of us who can always work with a positive inward attitude and yet it is something to strive towards. But if our childhood experience with work was unpleasant, as in "Get in there and clean your room," how can we transform our prejudice? There are movements in work - the rhythm of sweeping with the broom, the dishwashing that brings a swirl of bubbles on a plate, the chop-chop of the hoe, the push and sway of kneading bread.  There is movement in dance as well and many find the joy of dance easy to discover. When we move to music in dance we are often one with the movement - there is no separation of thinking and doing - our awareness is in our feet and our hands. I wonder if we can find the joyful dancing movement of sweeping the floor, the precision of folding a towel with our full attention.

Perhaps it may be easier if, at first, we try sweeping or mopping the floor in slow motion as if we were a mime artist or a Tai Chi master, to help bring our full awareness into our movement. When we are one with our doing, a feeling of peace is often attendant.  We enliven our own picture of work and we become ready to work with the children. And, yes, it often takes more time to complete the tasks with these small helpers beside us, but the effort reaps great rewards for now and far into the future.

Here are some practical suggestions for including the children in our day-to-day work in a meaningful way:

Laundry: There are opportunities here for sorting the clothes into different colors, matching socks, folding and delivering clothes to various destinations. If there is hand washing to be done, the possibilities are even richer.  A small scrub board can be used, the clothes swirled in the rinse water, wrung out and, most wonderful of all, hung on the line to dry. When my daughter was small, I had a clothesline up high and she had one at her height.Dishes: The adult can wash and the child can rinse, playing with the dishes as boats in the sink of water. Or the child can wash a few select and special items - colander, wire whisk, in the rainbow bubbly water while mother or father is making dinner nearby.Cooking/Baking: My four, five and six year olds are fine and serious chefs and quite capable of chopping vegetables if they are first cut into thin strips (potatoes are easiest, carrots more difficult).  When baking, bowls and sifters are placed around and dedicated workers arise - the flour is recycled through several siftings and high mountains are created. Pans can be oiled, stirring is a joy and, when making bread, kneading and shaping the dough is the ultimate creative, modeling experience.General Cleaning: Children enjoy holding the dustpan. They love dusting with a feather or lambs wool duster, sweeping the cobwebs down and cleaning windows. They can have a little basket of cleaning supplies, complete with window cleaner spray and rag.Outside: Raking leaves and grass at appropriate times of year are especially enjoyed. Piles of grass or leaves can be hauled around in a wagon and used to create wonderful forts and nests.  Gardening offers rich possibilities for planting, watering and gathering. A word about tools: the child's tools, inside and out, should be real tools so they can be used without frustration and breakage. Though the initial expense of a good shovel may seem prohibitive, the quality tool will outlast the toy many times over, especially if cared for properly.The children will want to move in and out of our work, joining for a time, drifting off to work and play of their own. When I think of my own work experiences as a child, one moment shines forth as a transcendent experience. At four years of age, I was visiting my grandparents who lived on a farm; I had always lived in apartments.  My grandmother, whose greatest joy in life was gardening, was moving slowly ahead of me making holes in the soft spring earth. I followed her, carefully dropping beans in the holes, reverently patting the earth over them. I felt the mystery of our act in my very bones; I was sure those were magic seeds, and I was in the midst of a fairy tale. The very light of this memory still has a golden and glowing reflection. Such moments bring their own special blessing to later life, blessings that follow from the child's joy-in-work as surely as evening follows morning.

Monday, March 5, 2012

summary of principles of Waldorf Early Childhood Education

Dear Families,

In a discussion today, I was reminded that I have the attached article and the blessing to distribute it. It does a great job of giving a quick picture of a variety of core principles that inform our interactions with your children in a Waldorf Early Childhood setting.

Caveat

1) This was written in serious fun by an experienced teacher. The target audience is teachers. We would never want parents to think they have to follow "commandments." I would want you to get a taste of what a teacher might consider.

Please do ask questions if any arise from this.

Warmly,

William