It's Time To Play!

Hooray! I was dismayed when we read Sabertooth Curriculum and New-Fist saw the children playing and said that they were wasting time and could be put to better use. So much so that I cried aloud. Therefore, I was obviously overjoyed that Vygotsky understands that play is learning!

Even though I was already a firm believer that the power of play, my feelings have been reinforced by the reading we did. Even the youngest children are learning when they play. Learning the rules of the world around them and then learning how to exploit those rules.  As students age they learn the rules of society around them through play and again, learn how these rules can be used to their advantage.

Vygotsky also talks about the Zone of Proximal Development. This means that students cannot miss the opportunity to read, or write, or learn mathematical concepts. It does mean though that students may not all be ready to learn a concept at the same time.  This is why some students don’t get rounding in 2nd grade… or 3rd grade… or 4th grade… but suddenly in 5th grade it makes sense. They were finally in a place where they were ready for the information.  This is in stark contrast to Piaget’s view that students were ready for certain activities at a certain age.

As teachers, we need to make sure that our lessons allow for play. This doesn’t mean that we need to get out the Recess equipment for every lesson, but rather that learning should engage students imaginations and allow them to work together in a playful manner. And ultimately this play needs to mimic real life, otherwise the benefit is lost.

Can we walk the walk? or will we just talk the talk?

One thing I’ve noticed, and is slightly reassuring after reading Sabertooth Curriculum, is that a lot of the articles we have been reading do align with many of the initiatives in FCPS, such as PICKLE = Portrait Of a Graduate and Authentic Activities = Project Based Learning. The pessimistic voice in me does warn that talk is cheap and we still have to see action being fully implemented. This is highlighted by my new principal’s demand that we post our objectives for each lesson on the board, a practice I oppose and feel like goes against the nature of both the ideas of PICKLE and Authentic Activity.

For my own practices, I will have to reconcile these two philosophies (particularly since I’m under evaluation this year :P) but I believe it can be done once I’m finished being grumpy about it. One aspect that was expanded for me was about the context of project based learning. I think a lot of teachers try to give students a task and say things like “pretend you are a ___________” or “imagine you are a ______________” which keeps students in a classroom context. I think the goal should be to have activities that aren’t framed by imagination or pretend but actually put students in the context of the professional culture involved.

One part of our discussion that really resonated with me is that we, as teachers, aren’t going to be able to teach every child to be a doctor, or an architect, or a scientist. What we need to do is give students experience thinking like these professionals so they can be productive and informed citizens when they read about current events and are expected to make high stakes decisions (cough… 2016 election).

PICKLE

The Sabertooth Curriculum highlights several issues with our current education system. The most striking of which is how society holds back innovation and change.  Change and innovation are both continually discussed amongst teachers and even requested from business leaders but they can be scary to parents and thus elected school boards and politicians can be reluctant to embrace it for many reasons.

So what are these skills students need for the future? Students need PICKLE (Problem solving, Information using, Community participation, Knowledgeable, Literate, and Ethical decision making) to succeed in the 21st century world. Despite the slowness of change, this is being taken up, at least in word, by many national standards as well as local standards (like FCPS’ Portrait of a Graduate).

What we haven’t reached yet, is fully implementing this plan. My current school is making steps towards implementing FCPS’ aforementioned Portrait of a Graduate but I do believe this is because we are a high performing school. My previous school was a Title I school and I fear that it will take longer for schools like that to have the “flexibility” (I use that in quotes as I don’t believe that’s really the case, merely what would be said by the tribal chiefs… I mean leadership) to pursue these skills in earnest.

Teachers as Designers

I learned there are some distinct differences between planning lessons and designing lessons. As teachers, we do both and both have a place.

Teachers as designers means that teachers need to think about the problems they need to tackle, the goals they want to achieve, and the constraints of the curriculum in order to design activities. With this in mind, Teachers use their curriculum knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge to innovate new activities that accomplishes the desired outcome and modify and adapt as new problems, goals, and constraints arise or are made apparent. This is supported by the need for designing to be intentional and purposeful over just filling time for students in the day.

These all happen, to some extent, subconsciously for teachers, myself included. My practice will be impacted by bringing these thoughts to the foreground and to increase the frequency of “designed” activities over “planned” activities.