AGH!! Aren’t you tired of all the endless discussion and argument over the value of play? I sure am.

Kids need Play!  Kids need Structure! Kids need to be Outdoors! Kids need to be Ready! Forest Schools! Recess! Free Play! WHAT ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY?

Here’s the deal: Children from birth to about 8, learn BEST when they:

• Move Their Bodies
• Use Their Senses
• Manipulate Stuff in the Environment
• Construct and Destruct (Build & Break & Rebuild)
• Pretend
• Express Themselves in Every Way

In other words, PLAY.

There are two kinds of Play and BOTH are MANDATORY EVERY DAY!

There is FREE PLAY which is open-ended, child-chosen, adults-only-there-for-physical safety, get-your-wiggles-out recess; and there is PURPOSEFUL PLAY, which is child-centered, child-chosen, and child-led, but also includes an environment staged with a purpose and with the human factor of someone who can provide language, open-ended questions, and who can recognize the learning achieved through the play and match it to developmentally appropriate objectives (there’s your accountability).

It’s confusing because there is so much great learning happening in Free Play which sometimes goes unrecognized as valuable learning and because so many teachers now feel the need to “over purpose” Purposeful Play to make sure academic goals are being met. So, what’s a Teacher to do?

Treat Free Play with Respect. Do not interrupt its flow or try to guide it, but do observe it carefully and recognize when assessable learning of value happens.

Treat Purposeful Play (Center Time or Choice Time) like a Broadway Production.  The child is the playwright and the director. He makes the decisions about where he will play, who he will play with, and how the play moves along. The Teacher is the set designer, the prop master, and the guy who whispers cues from offstage (offering language, asking open-ended questions, encouraging, naming, recognizing, and assessing the learning through observation and mental notation).Was the production a success? This question is answered when child and teacher reflect on the play, recalling it through conversation, dictation, drawings, or journal after the curtain goes down. No need for a big critique – no raves and no bad reviews – not even an audience is necessary for this play to be a HUGE HIT.

 

Alison Gopnik, author of  “The Scientist in the Crib” (with partners, Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) and a child development psychologist who has done wonderful TED talks about brain development, once said, “there’s a relationship between how long a childhood a species has and how big their brains are compared to their bodies, and how smart and flexible they are.” It seems that more intelligent animals seem to have bigger brains and ‘longer’ childhoods. I believe this is true for little humans.

Dr. Gopnik says that the crow, a bird thought to be very smart, has a childhood as long as two years, but a farm chicken, which reaches maturity in only a few months, is not known for the high quality of its upper level cognitive abilities.  The difference in the length of childhood – this gift of time to develop appropriately and fully – says Dr. Gopnik, is the reason why “crows end up on the cover of “Science”, and chickens end up in the soup pot.”

I believe that our current education system is becoming like the running of a poultry farm, producing chickens who can do little more than peck on a standardized test, so I got to thinking about what else crows and preschool age learners have in common and I found some pretty neat stuff.

Clara in AvesNoir, a website dedicated to the corvid (crows and their relatives) posted that the common crow will usually live for about seven years

Hey! Just about the same time the human brain takes to develop to the beginnings of logical concrete thinking.

Clara also shared that almost all corvids have been observed using tools, and the raven can be taught to speak basic human language. Crows are emotional animals, too. They react to hunger and invasion by vigorously vocalizing their feelings. They display happiness, anger and sadness. Crows are considered song-birds and posses a deep repertoire of melodies. And, like humans, the more melodious the song, the more soothing the effects. Some crows have even been taught to recite opera. Crows have an excellent memory. They are masters at stashing food in many caches, moving it sometimes two or three times, and remembering exactly where they placed it. In fact, for their size, crows have the largest brains of all birds except some parrots. Their brain-to-body ratio is equivalent to that of a chimpanzee and amazingly, not far off that of a humans.

Amazing. Same as human children from birth to about age 8!

David Dietle, in 6 Terrifying Ways Crows Are Way Smarter Than You Think, gives us the mixed blessings of this knowledge: They can remember your face. They conspire with one another. Their memorize situations and systems. They use tools and problem-solve. They make plans. They use adaptive behaviors.

Remarkable. All the things we want our children to learn!

From nucific.com. comes the fact that when gathered in huge communal groups, they may become a nuisance for people due to their shrill and loud ‘cawing’ and may even attack humans if disturbed. Crows are known to be omnivorous and aggressive and often prey on other birds.

Pretty much describes a classroom full of four-year-olds to me! 

So, my conclusion is this: instead of using a curriculum that breeds chickens for pecking and throws them in a pot, use one that lets you grow crows for their intelligence, and then lets them fly!

 

 

 

Whew! Finally finished the project behind this blog: the creation of a complete Early Education Curriculum we are calling Lakemont.

We’ll be using it this year at the Winter Park Presbyterian Church Preschool Program and will let you know how it goes before we go for full publication.

The blogs here are pieces of Lakemont, a curriculum designed with the mission of optimal natural learning for each child from birth to six through a system founded on the basic EVIDENCE of facts on child development and learning ; EXPECTATIONS (objectives) matching that EVIDENCE; an ENVIRONMENT of physical, emotional, and educational safety; EXPERIENCES that are child-centered purposeful play EXECUTED with consideration of the human factor and mandated DAP; and EVALUATION of child progress and program quality. It is ECLECTIC and encourages ELASTICITY! It makes the learning process EASY, ENJOYABLE, EFFICIENT, and EXCELLENT.