Letting Them Learn For Themselves

I was visiting a preschool, and spending time with the children outside on the playground. An orange butterfly fluttered by, then landed on a small tree branch, just at the children’s eye level. Several children clustered around watching the butterfly as it first sat motionless on the branch, then fluttered to another branch, then settled on a yellow flower.

“What do you think the butterfly is doing?” I asked.

The children looked thoughtfully at the butterfly, then at me, then at their teacher.

“You know all about butterflies!” the teacher said, smiling. “Tell Shelli what you know about butterflies.”

One of the children broke into an excited smile. “Butterflies come from caterpillars. They’re caterpillars and the caterpillars turn into butterflies. There’s four stages. She held up her hand and  pointed to each finger as she spoke. “There’s an egg, then its a larvae and a pupa and then a butterfly.”

“And a larvae is another name for what?” prompted her teacher.

“A caterpillar!” the child exclaimed, beaming.

Meanwhile, the butterfly had flown away. And none of the children had answered the question “What do you think the butterfly is doing?” It was a simple question, one that each of them could have answered through their own observations, based on their own thoughts, conclusions, and ideas. But the opportunity to observe, evaluate, predict, and imagine was passed over in favor of reciting facts. Unfortunately, this is how science is so often taught – by teaching discrete pieces of knowledge or factoids for children to repeat back, or to represent in art projects where they carefully follow teacher’s directions to create a chart or diagram that shows what they “know” about butterflies, or trees, or the water cycle, or any other natural phenomenon.

Of course there’s room for teaching facts, even though many of those facts can wait until children are older, and have had the chance to first observe, predict, analyze and evaluate on their own. When we introduce facts, we’re taking away opportunities for children to develop their own ideas, because once you know the “right” answer, there’s no more room for your own theories. When we substitute teaching facts for observation, we’re teaching children to trust what they’ve been told, not what they see for themselves. The well intentioned teaching act of giving background knowledge also teaches them to trust other opinions, especially authority opinions, before considering their own. In a world filled with competing narratives and an ever-increasing difficulty in determining what is true and what is not, children need to develop critical thinking skills that they can use to process information, not only based on their trust of the source, but based on their own experiences, thoughts and observations. We need curriculum and schools that don’t just teach children to say the correct answer, but that give them an opportunity to discover why that answer is correct, and to evaluate any other possible answers as well.

One October in my 2-year-old classroom, we examined a pumpkin. I told the children we were going to cut it open, and asked what they thought would be inside. One of the children exclaimed, “A beautiful butterfly!” I didn’t tell him whether he was wrong or right. The only way to know for sure would be to open the pumpkin and see what was there for ourselves.

**Note: The butterfly anecdote described in this blog was not a verbatim exchange between me, a child, and teacher. This blog post is a composite of many similar conversations I’ve had with children, and that I’ve observed other teachers have with children, in which science “facts” replace personal experiences and reflections in conversation.

The pumpkin anecdote did happen as described. And much to the child’s disappointment, when we opened the pumpkin, a beautiful butterfly did not appear.

Helping Them to Put Ideas Into Action

A frequent topic on discussion boards is for someone to post a picture of an interesting loose part or material they’ve found and say, “What should I do with this?” There are always some people who respond with craft ideas - that the adult should take the wood circle or rock or cork and paint letters, numbers, faces, or attach objects together in a way that the adult is using the materials to create a toy for the child. Then there are always others who respond that that the adult shouldn’t do anything and “Just put it out and see what the children do.”

Intentional teaching and scaffolding creativity are somewhere between those two points.

Wooden circles with letters written on them aren’t as open ended as plain wooden circles. Writing a letter, or number, or design on a piece of wood or a rock changes that object into something more specific. Objects painted with faces and costumes are dolls, just like any factory made doll that could be ordered from a catalog. There’s still plenty of ways that these materials can be used creatively,  constructively, and interestingly, in classrooms - but as soon as the adult permanently makes the material into something else, some of the open ended possibilities disappear.

 At the other end of discussion, “just put it out” doesn’t give children the tools they need to do “something” with the material. Children - and adults - view objects in context, and form ideas or action not based on the object alone, but on the other objects and materials in the environment. Even the classic open ended activity of using a stick to make designs in the dirt or sand requires both a stick and dirt or sand. Banging a spoon on a pot requires a spoon and a pot. Give a baby just a spoon, or just a pot, without the other object, and their play will be very different. If we want to spark and provoke innovative and creative play, when we choose materials and objects to share with children, we need to consider “What could they do with this” and structure the environment in ways that allow children to figure out ways to use the materials together, and to have the tools that they need to accomplish their ideas.

We humans respond to objects by their context. If you’re served a bowl of liquid with spoon, you’d probably assume it’s soup. If that same liquid was served in a glass, you’d assume it’s a beverage. If that same liquid were poured in a tray with a brush, next to a piece of paper, you might think of painting with it. If it were in a pitcher, you might think of pouring it. The same process of examining contextual cues is what guides children’s planning and decision process. If I see a container with a spout, I think of pouring. If I see a ramp, I think of rolling. If I see a tube, I think of what could go inside. More important, is what I don’t see, because if the materials I need aren’t in my environment, I can’t put my ideas into action. We’ve all seen children struggling to gather pebbles or shells when they don’t have pockets, and as adults we’ve usually stepped in to find some container. The goal shouldn’t only be for children to figure out what to do on their own. The goal should be for us to be partners with them in their discovery. Our job is to listen, observe, and when needed and welcomed, to help. 

When Talking Gets in the Way

It’s sometimes hard to know when to talk to a child who is deeply engaged in an activity, and it’s hard to know what to say. We’ve been trained as teachers to ask questions, comment, narrate, and reflect. There are times when the right question at the right time can extend a child’s thinking and provide the spark for the next phase of their activity.

There are other times when talking just gets in the way of what they’re doing.

Even as we say that “children learn through play” and that we value “process over product” so much of teacher speech interrupts the child’s process and trying to lead the child to a tangible product. Often when a teacher says, “Tell me about what you’re doing” or “What’s your plan?”, it’s less about meeting the child where they are in the moment, and more about the teacher wanting information for themselves. Or just wanting to connect with the child who is at play, which is a wonderful goal, but requiring children who are immersed in process to answer adult questions isn’t always the best way to connect.

  

I watched while one of the three-year-olds explored wood pieces and nuts and bolts. The wood pieces had holes drilled in them, with the intention that children would discover how to fit a bolt inside, and how to connect two or more pieces with a single bolt. She worked lining up the pieces, examining the shapes they were making. She put two pieces over each other, the holes lining up almost exactly.

“I wonder what would fit inside those holes?” I asked.

She completely ignored me, and I felt a sense of discontent, that I had encroached on her process. The bolts were right there – she had been using them a moment before. If she wanted to put a bolt in the hole, she would have. She didn’t need me to tell her how to do it. Prompting her to “fit something” inside the holes was about me and my need to “teach” – not about her need to explore the materials through her own process.

Later, she put in a bolt, but didn’t push it down to connect the pieces. This time, I stayed silent, and allowed her to experience the process her way, without my interruptions.

 She added more pieces, some with bolts, some without. I wondered if she had a plan, or was just seeing how the pieces worked together as she went along. But I didn’t say anything. Just because the teacher is wondering, doesn’t mean it’s useful to the child to be asked. My wondering about her plan should not take over her process. 

Eventually, after putting together many pieces, moving them around, and taking some apart, she announced, “It’s a clock!” and showed me how two of the wooden pieces moved like hands. She added small metal pieces and said they were the numbers. After observing her entire process, I don’t think she had a “plan” to build a clock, or to build anything. For young children, the representational “product” often comes at the end of the process. After completing the process of building, or drawing, or painting, the child decides what their creation looks like, and labels it. The true learning takes place in the process, and through the play of getting there. Sometimes there are questions or comments adults have that can help them in their process, but often, we just need to get out of the way.

Themes and Loose Parts

I was thinking about the frequent questions I see from teachers asking what loose parts they could use for one theme or another. My perception of loose parts - or any play based curriculum - is that when the teachers determine a theme for the play, it takes some of the agency away from their play. Even when the theme comes from teacher’s observations of what the children are interested in, the planning sometimes becomes more about the teacher’s interpretation of the children’s activity than of the children’s activity itself. 

I once had a group of 3-year-olds in my classroom who kept playing "going to Hawaii". One of kids had been to Hawaii with their family that summer, and the idea originated with them. They would say "Let's go to Hawaii", and the kids would run around the block area, and then sit down. One child would announce, “It’s time for lunch”, and bring over objects that they pretended were food. When my co-teacher and I observed the kids "going to Hawaii" we this would be a great start to a travel theme. We brought in suitcases, tickets, and beach props, thinking the children would use the materials we were giving them to extend their play.

This all fell flat.

Once the children were surrounded by all the travel related props, they'd still yell, "Let's go to Hawaii", run around, and then sit down to pretend to eat. They weren't interested in pretending to be on an airplane or at the beach. They used the suitcases to fill with their pretend food, which they’d bring to the block area and spread out a picnic. After several days of observing the play, and talking with the child who was leading it, and their parents, we found out that for that particular child the most important part of their trip to Hawaii was the meal his family had the last day there, and that's what they were re-creating through play. Not packing suitcases, going to the airport, or playing at the beach. Their idea of "Hawaii" was sharing a meal with their family. The child’s concept of “Hawaii” was completely different than the one that the teachers were trying to create.

This is why it's so important for teachers to let go of our preconceptions about how to provide a theme for children, and for us to simply let them lead their own play. We can join in, following their lead, but in the end, the ideas are the children’s not ours.  And that's why loose parts are so amazing. A wood circle can be an airplane ticket, or a cookie, or a fish swimming at the beach. If we give children open ended objects that they can use creatively in whatever ways their ideas progress, then they don’t need us to provide props. And if they do need something more from us, or want us to collaborate with them in developing their ideas, they’ll let us know.

It's Not A Mess

She pulled the large blocks off the shelf, one by one, dropping them randomly into a pile on the floor.

After the first five or six blocks, I started to speak. “Now that you’ve taken some blocks out, you can start building.” She didn’t respond and continued pulling blocks off the shelf – the long double-unit blocks, making an ever bigger pile on the floor. I started to say something else – a reminder not to take out all the blocks, or an observation she didn’t look like she was building, but I didn’t.

I stopped talking and watched her work.

After taking out every long block – about twenty – and dropping them into a pile, she started to build.

First a foundation, and then walls. She first spaced out the tall blocks evenly to form columns, then filled in the space to create a solid wall.

“Look at this!” she exclaimed. She gathered up cars from a basket and lined them up inside. 

“There’s a lot of cars in there”, another child said. He counted them, pointing to each as he counted. Several other children came over to watch, and to count too.

When they were done counting, she returned to the block pile, picking up blocks to make a roof.

The finished structure bore no resemblance to the pile of randomly dumped blocks that had been on the rug fifteen minutes before. But the structure might not have existed if I hadn’t let her create that pile. As she took block after block of the shelf and dropped it in the pile, the teacher voice in the back of my head kept whispering to me to stop her. She was making a mess, not working. “Okay, you’ve taken enough blocks off the shelf, now it’s time to build”, was on the tip of my tongue.

But it’s not my decision that “it’s time to build”. It’s hers.

What looked like a mess to my teacher eyes at the beginning was her process. Her organization, and her plan. If I used my adult power to stop her process, and put my process in its place, what would I be teaching? That my ideas and my plans are more important than hers? That her concepts and problem solving aren’t valued? Or maybe, that she shouldn’t even seek solutions in the first place, because a person in power will simply direct her.

It wasn’t a mess. It was valuable work. It’s our job to learn to see the difference.

 

All The Blocks

“But they’ll take out all the blocks.”

Yes, they sometimes will. Sometimes they’ll take out all the big blocks, and then the little ones. And the animals, and the cars. Sometimes they’ll fit the little blocks inside of the big ones, and line up animals and cars in every empty space they see. 

That’s what the blocks are there for. That’s what all the toys are there for – for the children to use, to play with and to bring their ideas to reality.

I’ve always wondered about teachers’ hesitancy to let children play with all of something.  Teachers choose to limit children’s block play for so many reasons – concerns about safety, about activity level, about sharing. The limits are usually less about the children’s abilities than about the teacher’s feelings of control. And sometimes having all the blocks being used at once seems overwhelming to teachers, as teachers imagine every possible scenario of what could go wrong. Will the children really clean them up? How much space are they using? What happens if they get knocked down?

But instead of worrying about what could go wrong, take moment to consider what is going right.

Yes, they’ll take out all the blocks. And they’ll work together to build some amazing structures. They’ll add details and figure out mathematical relationships and engineering concepts that they can visualize years before they can explain them. They’ll create a space that is theirs. They feel a sense of ownership and pride as they develop the setting for their play, and create something that has the awesome grandness of being big and complicated. They’ll take out all the blocks, and it can be wonderful.

The Point of Play

I spend a lot of time on online early childhood sites, reading blogs, commenting and discussing topics on Facebook groups, and scrolling through curriculum ideas on Pinterest. Over the past few years I’ve noticed a huge growing interest in things having to do with “Reggio Inspired” “Loose Parts” and “Nature Play”, which is really exciting to me as a teacher who has spent years encouraging children to come up with their own ideas, use materials the way they want and take the lead in deciding what they want to do and how they’re going to do it. At the heart of this is my core belief that children learn through play: through activities that focus on children’s process and that allow children to have control over the planning, decision making, and interactions during these activities.

But somehow, adults keep missing this.

It’s hard to be a “teacher”. I sometimes feel that title is like a heavy backpack of expectations each of us carries, never letting us forget that our “real job” is to be teaching children something. No matter how many times we say that “children learn through play” or “process is more important than product”, there’s that pesky “teacher” baggage weighing down and whispering in our ears that what we should really be doing is making sure the kids know their numbers and ABCs.

I see this over and over again in the conversations about classroom materials. The concept of using “loose parts” http://exploreinspireec.blogspot.com/2017/04/loose-parts-and-intentional-environments.html is about providing open-ended materials that can be used in many different ways, encouraging creativity, discovery, and exploration. There’s also attention to design elements, so many of these materials are truly beautiful, and their color, shape, and texture add to the overall environment of classroom space. But I’ve noticed more and more, adults getting caught up in simply having the materials to use for their own “teacher” purposes and less on letting children use them the way the children want to.

Every experience doesn’t need to involve an adult teaching an academic skill. Every time a child sits down with a pile of colored beads or blocks, they shouldn’t be expected to sort them or create patterns. Every time a child lines up a row of rocks, they shouldn’t be asked to count them. Teachers shouldn’t be focused on what the adults can make out of bottlecaps and rocks, they should be focused on creating an environment where the children will figure out what to do with them. Instead of spending time writing letters and numbers on tree circles and seashells, teachers should be embracing these materials for what they are – opportunities for children to be creative and expressive and the leaders of their own play. That’s what the materials are for – to play with. Not to find one more surface to write numbers and letters on, or to “teach” a concept or skill, but to create a space and opportunity for children to play. Play itself is the point of play.

Making Space For Blocks

I’ve written before about the mixed feelings some teachers have about block play – especially “big blocks.” They worry about safety, or about the play “getting out of control.” They aren’t comfortable with active play indoors, or with the themes that large block building evokes, like spaceships and superhero hideaways. They want to avoid the inevitable social conflict that comes as children discuss, collaborate, and sometimes argue about what they’re going to build. 

Block play is messy and complicated - but it needs to be. Children need the experience of lifting, moving, stacking and arranging these heavy objects into something that they've planned and designed. They need to plan, discuss, argue and negoiate their ideas with each other. They need the freedom to carry out their ideas and enact pretend themes - including superheroes and alients. And they need to feel the power, self-fulfillment, and personal efficacy of the simple grandness of block construction - the power of building something bigger than themselves.. The same innate drive that led ancient humans to build towers of rocks and stone draws children to build - higher, wider, and bigger, to create something that in its sheer scope, suggests power and a feeling of "wow, look what I made!"

And, this grandness takes space.

When we make decisions about how to use the space we have, we can make a decision to create space that will allow these block constructions to happen.

It might be a large space, big enough for several groups of children to each build their own structure.

 It might be a small space, where children are given the freedom to fill that space with their block creation.

It might not be a particular space at all, but a flexibility on the part of the teacher to allow block building to happen wherever it is that the children find a way to make room.

 And wherever it happens, when we make space for blocks, we’ve made space for children to express their competency, their power, their imagination, and all of the skills and development that comes with.

Mindset Not Materials

This week, I gave a talk about introducing “risky play” in early childhood classrooms. I talked about the situations and reasons that first spurred me to think about risky play, I talked about some of the reasons risky play is so important to development, and I talked about some of the different play I’ve observed in my classroom, and some ways that children use materials in physically challenging ways.

What I couldn’t answer though, was how to make this happen.

How do you set up indoor and outdoor environments that encourage children to engage in risk-taking play that allows them to explore ideas of safety, control, and self-regulation? How do you choose materials for this? Most of all, how do you plan for this all to happen? The answer – I don’t know. Of course, some materials lend themselves to open ended problem solving more than others. Teachers can present materials and set up spaces that provoke the question “What can I do with that?” But once a child asks that question, it’s the teacher’s reaction that shapes what happens next.

Education catalogs are full of materials to create beautiful outdoor environments. There are countless blogs and websites with tips on how to create a “Reggio-inspired classroom.” I’ve had discussions with teachers who proudly proclaim that they’ve painted their walls beige, thrown out the plastic toys, and brought tree stumps inside for the children to sit on. All of this might be aesthetically pleasing, but there’s no automatic connection between any of these things and children’s learning and exploration. For learning and exploration to happen, the teachers need to let it happen.

Allowing children to engage in risky or challenging play involves risk on the part of the teacher. The teacher needs to trust that the children know what they’re doing, and that learning will take place. The teacher needs to trust the children’s ideas, and trust that the children are competent to discover their own questions, seek out answers, and use materials in their own creative and innovative ways – even ways the teacher didn’t expect or imagine.

Creative play is about mindset, not materials.

The most creative and thought-provoking materials will lead nowhere if teachers don’t allow them to. There’s nothing magical about a tree stump or a basket of pebbles and shells. The magic comes when children are given the freedom to test their limits – to test the limits of how high they can climb or how far they can jump, how many small pieces they can pour out and spread across the floor, how many combinations and substances they can mix, dump, and fill.

The magic is in testing the limits of innovation, and discovering ways to use materials in a new way, whether they’re sticking toys into playdough or using tempera paint to trace designs up and down their arms. And the magic is in testing out social relationships, as they discover that their words have power and meaning, and sometimes consequences, and learn to navigate the complicated world of interacting with others, some who may be friends, and some who aren’t. 

The magic is in the mindset of the teacher – the teacher who allows the children’s exploration to unfold, and knows how to guide it, not stop it. The materials mean nothing, without the mindset to let the magic happen, to trust in the children that their play will be okay, and it might even be amazing.