Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Bonus: Summit: Play and Outdoor Learning w/ Abe Moore
14 Plays5 years ago
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing
This discussion will talk about how we can bring about play-based learning in and out of classroom. This conversation will center on experiential learning and student voice, with some credence to how this can integrate to the COVID-19 crisis.
Abe Moore is a primary teacher in Adelaide, Australia, and has worked on brilliant projects, including building an entire play space with his students.
How can we build spaces and co-create curriculum with our students to encourage play, especially in the outdoors?
What activities, games, and/or projects can we undertake with individuals or small groups of students?
What does a play-based outdoor curriculum, classroom, and community look like?
Resources mentioned in this episode can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qgePI6nTaD2ihJdYHCJuhPgsg38q3RD4MhIyRbp1qW4/edit?usp=sharing
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Play and Outdoor Learning
00:00:08
Speaker
So today we're doing our March summit with Human Restoration Project and Abe Moore and maybe Maria Taylor, we'll find out, on play and outdoor-based learning.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm super stoked for this.
00:00:19
Speaker
Do note that this is supported by our Patreon backers, so Human Restoration Project does all this stuff for free.
00:00:25
Speaker
as a result of people giving us like one, $3 a month.
00:00:29
Speaker
That really keeps us going and make sure that we can keep getting some cool stuff coming to you.
00:00:34
Speaker
Big thing for this is just participating.
00:00:36
Speaker
The more people that get involved in the conversation, the better this is going to go and the more exciting it's going to be.
00:00:42
Speaker
Just make sure that when other people are chatting, just mute yourself.
00:00:45
Speaker
It makes things easier.
00:00:45
Speaker
There's less background noise.
00:00:47
Speaker
It's also less awkward if something were to happen.
Who is Chris McNutt?
00:00:50
Speaker
So just some introductions here.
00:00:52
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt.
00:00:54
Speaker
I'm a high school digital media arts instructor.
00:00:56
Speaker
I teach at a public school in Ohio.
00:00:58
Speaker
And I'm the founder of Human Restoration Project.
00:01:01
Speaker
If you visit our website, which is humanrestorationproject.org, you'll find a ton of free resources surrounding progressive education.
00:01:08
Speaker
So our focus is on giving students experiences, drawing upon their knowledge, and really just empowering them to succeed.
00:01:15
Speaker
And I'll push it over here to Abe Moore, who's going to be our primary speaker here today.
Abe Moore's Perspective on Play-Based Education
00:01:20
Speaker
You want to introduce yourself?
00:01:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
So good morning from South Australia.
00:01:25
Speaker
My name is Abe Moore.
00:01:26
Speaker
I'm a U67 primary school teacher here in Adelaide.
00:01:32
Speaker
And it's really nice to be here this morning.
00:01:34
Speaker
It's great to be involved with this.
00:01:35
Speaker
So thank you, Chris, for the invitation.
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm very excited.
00:01:38
Speaker
I think this is going to be a really interesting conversation, especially in light of obviously there's nothing else really to talk about right now outside of COVID-19.
00:01:46
Speaker
But I think there is a place for outdoor and play-based education, especially now.
00:01:51
Speaker
When everyone's going outside today was the first warm day in Ohio and quite a while 70 and sunny and it was amazing how many people were more than normal on a sunny day.
00:02:03
Speaker
I mean, I felt like there was 100 people at the park.
00:02:05
Speaker
So it was impressive.
00:02:08
Speaker
And I think that was a place there for us to kind of instill some education.
00:02:11
Speaker
So we have three questions here
Co-Creating Learning Spaces with Students
00:02:13
Speaker
in chat that we can kind of dive through at our own pace.
00:02:16
Speaker
Feel free to interject at any time.
00:02:17
Speaker
Just say something in chat like saying, hey, I want to say something.
00:02:19
Speaker
I have a question, et cetera.
00:02:21
Speaker
And we'll just go with that and make it very organic.
00:02:24
Speaker
The plan is to talk for roughly an hour.
00:02:27
Speaker
So let's go ahead and get started.
00:02:29
Speaker
Let's just jump into the first question, which is, Abe, you've had a lot of experience with this, which is building spaces and co-creating curriculum with students to encourage play, especially outside.
00:02:39
Speaker
I mean, you're literally sitting in a building that students co-created with you.
00:02:44
Speaker
So why don't you talk about that for a bit and then we'll go from there.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:49
Speaker
So a few years back, we started looking at how can we engage kids more in their own learning.
00:03:00
Speaker
I was very traditional with my pedagogy.
00:03:04
Speaker
I'm a PE teacher by training and I just got thrown into a classroom a few years back and really had to find my way from there.
00:03:13
Speaker
But kids just weren't engaging the way that I wanted them to.
00:03:17
Speaker
Like it was very teacher directed everything we did.
00:03:19
Speaker
So I was very much looking at how do we help the kids to take more ownership of what they do.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a big journey to this point and everything that you guys have done, the Human Restoration Program project over the last couple of years has been massive for me.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, the furniture that you can see behind us actually was built by the kids a couple of years ago.
00:03:48
Speaker
We held an exhibition of stories and artwork.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I like a quote that Ira Sokol has.
00:03:56
Speaker
She says that we need genius weeks and direct instruction hours.
00:04:02
Speaker
I've kind of taken that to heart over the last 10 years.
00:04:04
Speaker
especially the last couple of years.
00:04:07
Speaker
So last year we took on a project called Project Re-Imaginate where we just wanted to rethink what our school could actually be.
00:04:16
Speaker
And now even walking this morning, like I see the kids' fingerprints everywhere.
00:04:20
Speaker
Like the school really is starting to feel like it belongs to kids.
00:04:24
Speaker
So the project itself, we spent months working
00:04:31
Speaker
talking to stakeholders, talking to connecting with our community, talking with the students here and trying to work out, well, what do we want this school to be?
00:04:40
Speaker
Like, again, Ira and, you know, Pam Moran and Chad Ratcliffe, they talk about in Timeless Learning.
00:04:49
Speaker
you've got to work out what you want your kids to be before you can work out what you want your kids to do.
00:04:54
Speaker
So that's been a really big part of our journey, actually working out, well, hey, who do we want to be?
00:05:00
Speaker
What are kids going to have?
00:05:01
Speaker
What skill sets and values and virtues are they going to have when they leave us at the end of their, yeah, seven years or eight years that they have with us?
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah.
Designing Outdoor Play Spaces
00:05:09
Speaker
So for those that are possibly less familiar, you share all the time on Twitter these basically outdoor experiences that students have, like designing play.
00:05:18
Speaker
They're literally designing spaces outside that they can play in.
00:05:22
Speaker
How do you kind of start that from inception to actually having students create these things?
00:05:28
Speaker
Are they just jumping right into it?
00:05:29
Speaker
Is there a methodology?
00:05:30
Speaker
How does that all work?
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's messy.
00:05:33
Speaker
It's really messy.
00:05:35
Speaker
It's a little bit daunting sometimes too.
00:05:38
Speaker
We have quite a few people that are interested and come and visit.
00:05:41
Speaker
And it's like if you walk through and someday see what's going on, it's very organic.
00:05:47
Speaker
Like it has to be led by kids.
00:05:51
Speaker
When we took on, we had a day of play last year, that was kind of about product.
00:05:55
Speaker
You know, we're all about process, but we wanted to have an endpoint, an exhibition of the learning.
00:06:00
Speaker
So it made sense for us that we had a big day of play where we launched prototypes of the spaces that we wanted to actually create.
00:06:08
Speaker
So lots of the things that we actually built,
00:06:12
Speaker
they're temporary so and a couple of them are now permanent spaces um and things like uh we created a scooter track down on our basketball courts we got you know a huge huge grounds but a very small school for our context so um the the kids yeah we
Project Re-Imaginate and Student Ownership
00:06:31
Speaker
were inspired by um better block i think they do prototyping of of streets and um
00:06:37
Speaker
drawing people back into communities.
00:06:40
Speaker
And they do things like cornflower paint.
00:06:42
Speaker
So, you know, we cornflower painted a whole heap of bike tracks and we got tires donated and painted them up to make chicanes.
00:06:50
Speaker
And, you know, that was a space.
00:06:53
Speaker
We recognised that we needed a quiet space for kids to play in.
00:06:57
Speaker
So the kids created a secret garden.
00:06:59
Speaker
They took this out of bounds, run down space and actually turned it into kind of like a sanctuary, really.
00:07:05
Speaker
It's part outdoor classroom for kids.
00:07:08
Speaker
It's just a quiet space for kids to go and play.
00:07:12
Speaker
And all of these ideas, they didn't necessarily turn out the way that we had planned them.
00:07:19
Speaker
They did a heap of design.
00:07:20
Speaker
We had council come in, playground designers.
00:07:23
Speaker
We went out and audited playgrounds all around the city.
00:07:27
Speaker
Kids organised excursions, field trips to actually see examples of what we were trying to create so that we could bring it back here.
00:07:36
Speaker
So it's messy is the answer, I guess.
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it really is impressive.
Challenges of Remote Outdoor Learning During COVID-19
00:07:44
Speaker
If someone hasn't seen yet, Arbae38, right, on Twitter, you can go through like all of Abe's media posts.
00:07:53
Speaker
And it's honestly amazing to see what true experiential education looks like.
00:07:57
Speaker
Co-created curriculum with younger students doing some really cool stuff, which I think
00:08:03
Speaker
I mean, in most districts is going to look like worksheets.
00:08:05
Speaker
So it's pretty cool to see what can happen when you really give students the reins to your curriculum.
00:08:11
Speaker
So let's dive into then how this then would relate to COVID-19, because all of the things that you're doing right now for the remainder of the school year, at least in the United States, it's not likely that those things are going to happen.
00:08:24
Speaker
It seems like most districts in the United States are going to remain closed for the rest of the school year.
00:08:28
Speaker
do you see a way that students could still engage in outdoor play-based learning like what you're an advocate for still at home and still make that part of school i mean obviously they go outside and play but is there a way that you could integrate it into a school curriculum yeah that's a really good question that's something we're giving a lot of thought to here we we still have another week of school left um before we we go on holidays for a few weeks and then it's very up in the air about what happens next so
00:08:59
Speaker
This is where I would have loved to have thrown to Maria because this is her area of very much of expertise.
00:09:05
Speaker
I'm really interested in outdoor play.
00:09:09
Speaker
I've got two young children, so, you know, just investigating play has been a big part of the last couple of the years for me.
00:09:17
Speaker
How do we go outside now?
00:09:20
Speaker
That's a really big question.
00:09:24
Speaker
I think it's probably more important now than ever.
00:09:29
Speaker
It's really interesting to me that maybe the conversation is starting to shift as well, that we're starting to, you know, really think about the health and the wellbeing and the mental health of kids and that outdoor education is a huge, huge part of that.
00:09:44
Speaker
So I don't necessarily have an answer for that.
00:09:47
Speaker
I'd be interested to hear what other people, like Skylar, for instance.
00:09:51
Speaker
I'm a big fan of what Skylar does.
00:09:53
Speaker
I'm really interested in his school.
00:09:55
Speaker
So...
00:09:57
Speaker
One thing I learned recently from Peter Verdin, who we just had in the podcast a few weeks ago, I had walked into that thinking that reimagining a physical education for young people, mostly adolescents, not like elementary school kids.
Virtual Outdoor Learning and Technology
00:10:11
Speaker
I had walked in thinking like, oh, we'll transition into like calorie counting and like independent working out like things that adults do not realizing that.
00:10:21
Speaker
That's actually probably not a good idea because the majority of adults that do that kind of stuff ultimately don't follow it.
00:10:27
Speaker
And he had brought up the fact that the goal of physical education should be to inspire students to realize these things are fun and exciting for themselves.
00:10:34
Speaker
Then they just connect them with the thing that is active and they end up doing it.
00:10:38
Speaker
And that's what makes them happy.
00:10:39
Speaker
So perhaps part of the...
00:10:42
Speaker
goal for students would just be identifying something interesting that they're going to do that week outside and just reflecting on something new that they want to engage in, which I mean, there's some equity issues there, as there always is, because not everyone's going to have access to a safe outdoor environment.
00:10:58
Speaker
But it's at least some kind of idea for a branching off point to be inspired to go out and do something and just talk about it.
00:11:04
Speaker
I'm not sure if that
00:11:05
Speaker
So I was, I just put it in the chat that I was trying to figure out how to unmute myself.
00:11:09
Speaker
I was like moving around the interface and cause it's not like zoom.
00:11:14
Speaker
So, but what, so we're about to start, start back up again on Monday for like teacher planning time followed by, and then we're doing virtual learning at least for three weeks.
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's going to be for, you know, nine weeks or whatever's left.
00:11:33
Speaker
And what we're, what our field naturalist has been talking about is figuring out ways to do, to lead virtual learning.
00:11:39
Speaker
um, field experiences.
00:11:41
Speaker
Like she lives out in the woods.
00:11:42
Speaker
Um, and she is willing to like basically do a zoom call or, uh, um, Google hangout on her phone and, uh, or record herself one or the other, like exploring things outside and then talking through things and like having kids, um, either live, um, connect with that or, um,
00:12:03
Speaker
you know, some asynchronously.
00:12:05
Speaker
We haven't really worked out the details yet because we haven't really talked because it's been spring break and we've been actually trying to take an actual break during this time.
00:12:13
Speaker
But that's one thing.
00:12:14
Speaker
And then the other idea that came to mind about finding things
00:12:20
Speaker
in their neighborhood that interests them or finding things outside is phenology is a real this is a really great time to be picking up phenology which is the study of changes changes in nature seasonal changes and it really benefits from just taking one spot and monitoring it over time and that can be
00:12:39
Speaker
qualitative monitoring, just, you know, journaling or sketching for the artistically inclined that are not me.
00:12:45
Speaker
Or it can be more quantitative using Nature's Notebook through the USA National Phenology Network, which is a community science program that does
00:12:56
Speaker
you know, gathers data from all over the country and actually does science with it.
00:13:01
Speaker
But, and my cat's jumping in my lap.
00:13:04
Speaker
But those are two things that immediately come to mind.
00:13:07
Speaker
But we haven't done a lot of planning yet, but we're definitely,
00:13:12
Speaker
looking to continue kids getting outside because it's obviously important at all age levels and for adults too.
00:13:20
Speaker
I mean, I am very grateful that I have a dog that's been forcing me to get outside every single day during this whole quarantine.
00:13:29
Speaker
Dogs are being walked like dogs have never been walked before.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yes.
Creating Play Spaces at Home
00:13:38
Speaker
For me, I think if I'm going to be locked down in a house with a three and a one-year-old for the next few weeks, probably applying some of the things that we learned and we looked at last year around creating opportunities for different types of play becomes really important.
00:13:54
Speaker
For young kids, you know, creating spaces for imagination and fantasy play, for construction play, you know, special places for that type of play to occur as well.
00:14:09
Speaker
Creating opportunities for risk taking in the play is a really big one too, like getting kids outside.
00:14:18
Speaker
We're about to, as I said before, introduce bikes and scooters into our playground.
00:14:24
Speaker
And it's making some people really nervous that that's going to happen.
00:14:27
Speaker
But it feels like a bit of an extension of the home.
00:14:30
Speaker
So, you know, what risks can we actually bring back into our play was a big motivator for us here.
00:14:38
Speaker
Things like working with real tools,
00:14:41
Speaker
you know, um, speed.
00:14:44
Speaker
So heights, um, all the elements of, of risky play.
00:14:49
Speaker
So creating space and time for kids to, to enjoy that and getting outside while we still can, you know?
00:14:56
Speaker
So Abe, do you see a place?
00:14:59
Speaker
Um, so hypothetically, if, you know, you don't see your students, uh, and they're working remotely and they've been working on this project now for, I mean, practically the whole year, uh, they've been building and co-creating a space with you.
00:15:12
Speaker
What would you have your students do now if they're only able to see you online?
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:21
Speaker
And that's the thing I'm really giving a lot of thought to at the moment is how do we transfer what we're doing here?
00:15:27
Speaker
Can we even transfer what we're doing here into the home?
00:15:30
Speaker
Can we continue to build?
00:15:31
Speaker
Can we continue to collaborate and connect?
00:15:34
Speaker
And what does that look like?
00:15:36
Speaker
Um, it seems like every year we have a day where kids just get it.
00:15:41
Speaker
It just clicks for them.
00:15:43
Speaker
And so we're 10 weeks into our school year here.
00:15:47
Speaker
Um, I kept about half of my, my cohort from last year, which is amazing.
00:15:51
Speaker
Cause I don't have to reinvent the wheel every year when that happens.
00:15:54
Speaker
Um, those kids, you know, they're not starting day one, they're starting day 181.
00:15:59
Speaker
So they just come in and go and the other kids, you know, join the classroom and go, oh, okay.
00:16:03
Speaker
So this is how this works.
00:16:04
Speaker
And, um,
00:16:06
Speaker
So on Friday, we only had about half the class.
00:16:09
Speaker
We got a lot of kids working from home, but the ones that were here, we didn't organize anything specifically for them.
00:16:16
Speaker
It was kind of like an extension of home day.
00:16:19
Speaker
They had tasks and things that they were working on and they just, they got it.
00:16:23
Speaker
Like every kid was engaged in their project.
00:16:25
Speaker
We had kids spread out around the school and we were just here to support that learning.
00:16:30
Speaker
So I'm really hoping that now that they've got their teeth into the projects that we're working on this year, that they can continue to take those on and build from that stuff at home.
00:16:42
Speaker
So what does that look like?
00:16:44
Speaker
I don't have the answers to that.
00:16:46
Speaker
I'd love to hear what other people are doing because the worksheets and the packets and the, here's a bunch of websites like jump on and explore.
00:16:55
Speaker
That stuff's great if you're just siloing your learning, but to be able to connect with each other and continue to do things that are building community or building place, that's the stuff that really matters to me.
00:17:08
Speaker
So I suppose then if we're talking purely virtually and we'll dive back into outdoor and play based stuff here in a second, maybe part of that is just building that space online.
00:17:17
Speaker
Or as Martha said in chat, the idea of co-creating a space at one's house, which I think is really interesting, a really interesting suggestion, the idea that you use.
00:17:28
Speaker
you kind of with the student are teaching to them, recognizing that they're in the place that they're in, because there are a lot of things that can be done at home, which don't have to be rote and they don't have to be like super, I don't know, exhausting.
00:17:43
Speaker
I see a lot of activities where people are sending home like these absurd 20 step processes that students are expected to do at their home.
00:17:51
Speaker
Which I don't know is realistic, especially for students that don't have the time because of the many other obligations that they have.
00:17:57
Speaker
But there are places for creative space and sharing out things that you're doing and reflective space that comes from the home that could be rather interesting.
00:18:06
Speaker
What do you see as something that students could then do outside that they could then reflect on and then put into your own classroom?
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, and ideally I think that's the whole point of this.
00:18:16
Speaker
It's giving kids the skills and, you know, the belief that they can do projects like this at home, that they can change spaces and places.
00:18:25
Speaker
So that's a great question.
00:18:27
Speaker
I'll probably put that to the kids as well.
00:18:29
Speaker
Like how do we transfer the skills that we're building here into your home?
00:18:35
Speaker
I know from a couple of students who've left me this year, they've moved on to high school, but the experience that they got creating a butterfly garden was massive and they've actually taken that back to their street.
00:18:47
Speaker
So for us here, identifying native plants that draw butterflies to them and planting them out, like it's a small thing.
00:18:57
Speaker
Those kids took it home, but their neighbourhood has become like a haven for butterflies.
00:19:02
Speaker
So, you know,
00:19:04
Speaker
I think it has to be authentic for kids.
00:19:06
Speaker
It has to be contextual for them.
00:19:08
Speaker
So, you know, what do you have?
00:19:11
Speaker
What are you hoping to have?
00:19:14
Speaker
And then working and moving towards that.
00:19:18
Speaker
Oh, hi, this is Tracy from New Orleans.
00:19:21
Speaker
How are you doing?
00:19:22
Speaker
Tracy, good.
00:19:23
Speaker
How are you?
Tracy's Experience with Child-Led Curriculum
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts because in my graduate program, my experience was using the project approach.
00:19:32
Speaker
A professor wrote a book called The Project Approach.
00:19:36
Speaker
It was early childhood education slash early intervention for special education.
00:19:41
Speaker
So it was teaching you not only how to work with children from ages birth to five, but
00:19:48
Speaker
with and without disabilities.
00:19:50
Speaker
So the project approach is, and I've made this comment before to Chris and Nick, it's very aligned to progressive education.
00:19:58
Speaker
So somehow,
00:20:00
Speaker
20 plus years ago when I did my student teaching, we had all these wonderful practices for young children.
00:20:07
Speaker
We've even gotten away from that now because kindergarten is first grade bootcamp, right?
00:20:14
Speaker
But anyway, my point is that it's all about project-based learning.
00:20:19
Speaker
It's the project approach.
00:20:20
Speaker
And so what we did is we started doing observations, interacting with the children outside all day.
00:20:27
Speaker
We were outside with them like,
00:20:30
Speaker
two or three hours of the day.
00:20:32
Speaker
We would listen and hear for their interest.
00:20:35
Speaker
And we noticed that all the kids would always like make little mud pies in the mud, or like if they were in the sand table, they would like pretend they're baking.
00:20:45
Speaker
So we kind of noticed a theme among the like 25 kids that it was baking.
00:20:50
Speaker
And so we built a curriculum.
00:20:53
Speaker
Now you have to understand these are kids that are like
00:20:55
Speaker
two, three, four, five, some of them have disabilities.
00:20:59
Speaker
So there is more direct instruction and facilitation per se, but their interests led the project, right?
00:21:07
Speaker
So it was born from their interests.
00:21:11
Speaker
So that's their part of the co-creation.
00:21:14
Speaker
And then we added literacy activities and built that out with them.
00:21:17
Speaker
And
00:21:18
Speaker
I was in a summer institute and then we had like a culminating activity where we bake things and invited the parents.
00:21:27
Speaker
Part of like the issue that I see right now is that my experience with ABA therapy, we do a lot of intervention.
00:21:35
Speaker
Video modeling is very big in the ABA field.
00:21:41
Speaker
the teacher either videotapes herself doing an activity or a peer.
00:21:48
Speaker
So obviously a peer is more preferential.
00:21:51
Speaker
And so then it could be anything that you want the student to do.
00:21:56
Speaker
So when you're speaking, I'm thinking about all the things that you could do to videotape yourself and have that be the facilitation point for the learning.
00:22:09
Speaker
The issues are very obvious here.
00:22:13
Speaker
We're not talking about like possibly what we could do now, but what I see right now in education is the opportunity to take this experience and be proactive because you can't say this isn't going to happen again.
Hybrid Learning Models and Early Childhood Education
00:22:27
Speaker
You can't say everything's off now.
00:22:29
Speaker
All bets are off in the world.
00:22:31
Speaker
You can't
00:22:32
Speaker
the predictability of life is unpredictable.
00:22:35
Speaker
So I see this as an opportunity to maybe we're scrambling right now, but we can use some of the, um,
00:22:45
Speaker
like techniques from ABA, like video modeling and getting kids to model things and maybe even being proactive, having something lined up.
00:22:55
Speaker
So if a kid's sick, I'm thinking, you know, you can include them in the project because they'll have these little videos.
00:23:03
Speaker
It's just that
00:23:04
Speaker
Do they have access to technology if there's a project?
00:23:07
Speaker
Do they have access to the materials?
00:23:09
Speaker
It's very, that's why I don't think we can solve it right now because it's so comprehensive.
00:23:15
Speaker
But from what I see, all of these brilliant minds that are coming together right now, everybody can come up.
00:23:21
Speaker
I'm not a tech person and anyone who follows me on Twitter laughs at me.
00:23:26
Speaker
I'm not a tech person.
00:23:27
Speaker
I'm a book person.
00:23:28
Speaker
But
00:23:29
Speaker
Between the tech and the experiences that everyone brings together, I feel like there's something that we can build from out of this and even take what the playground, everything that you're doing at school, a garden, and you can bridge that gap to home.
00:23:47
Speaker
So now we can really start to do hybrid learning.
00:23:50
Speaker
And I think that's something that can really be born from this.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, I agree completely.
00:23:58
Speaker
I think it has to be authentic for me.
00:24:01
Speaker
It has to be driven by kids and that's going to look different for, you know, I've only got 23 kids in my class and that's going to look different for 23 kids here, let alone, you know, in different places.
00:24:12
Speaker
So, you know, kids that don't have a backyard, kids that are living in a higher.
00:24:16
Speaker
So what are the opportunities that present for kids and what does that look like?
00:24:21
Speaker
How are they getting outside?
00:24:22
Speaker
How are they engaging in that learning?
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah, the questions, like I feel like now we can like have a list of questions like you just said.
00:24:33
Speaker
So when you think of a scenario, list all out everything that you can think of.
00:24:38
Speaker
Like you said, they don't have a backyard.
00:24:40
Speaker
They don't have access to tech.
00:24:42
Speaker
And then after we get back to the new normal, right, because it'll never be normal like the old normal, it's the new normal, then we can all stay together as a community of learners and teachers, and we can build out for the next
00:25:00
Speaker
pause in our life.
00:25:01
Speaker
So it's like taking this opportunity to sort of like all collectively brainstorm all the things that will have to go into this bigger puzzle.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, I've read a few times people talking about, hey, don't waste a good crisis.
00:25:17
Speaker
So it's going to be really interesting to see what change, what lasting change can come from all this.
Community and Relationships in Multi-Age Learning
00:25:23
Speaker
I'm not going to say I'm excited about the prospect of, you know, tackling this, but it is going to be really interesting.
00:25:31
Speaker
I'm really interested in multi-age learning.
00:25:34
Speaker
I don't think it's a new thing by any stretch.
00:25:37
Speaker
It goes back a long time.
00:25:38
Speaker
But I feel like this is a great opportunity for our little school with 120 kids, that multi-age learning and that we don't get a lot of crossover here with much of anything.
00:25:50
Speaker
We have single year levels of every grade.
00:25:52
Speaker
So I think that's a great opportunity.
00:25:53
Speaker
I'm going to have an opportunity to potentially be teaching all kids in my school with low floor, high ceiling tasks and what that looks like and how we connect and continue the relationships and the community.
00:26:05
Speaker
That's the stuff that really for me is the most important.
00:26:09
Speaker
I can throw content out there for days, for years worth of content, but keeping, you know, being community together, that for me is going to be the challenge.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
And, you know, we take a lot of, you know, just like you said, I was teaching a class with like two to five year olds.
00:26:27
Speaker
So really it's looking at early childhood education principles, which I feel that Human Restoration Project has fleshed out all of those because even like the social justice in pre-K and kindergarten, we do a great job of like when somebody is crying, like the class comes together.
00:26:45
Speaker
But then all of a sudden when they're teenagers and they're beating the hell out of each other,
00:26:50
Speaker
then it goes to another level.
00:26:52
Speaker
So I feel that multi-age is that's what you do in early childhood.
00:26:58
Speaker
Early childhood education, especially special education is like age ranges.
00:27:03
Speaker
So there's a lot to learn and I am looking forward to it just because, just to give you background, I was in New Orleans during Katrina, we dropped the ball.
00:27:12
Speaker
We started doing all of these things 15 years ago.
00:27:16
Speaker
And I've spoken on this and written on this at length, but the corruption and the fraud and the deception and the failure, I don't ever want anyone to ever experience what this city is experiencing.
00:27:31
Speaker
We have 13 to 15 murders a week in New Orleans.
00:27:35
Speaker
We have less than a million people.
00:27:37
Speaker
It is a war zone.
00:27:39
Speaker
We did not get trauma therapy for our children.
00:27:42
Speaker
We did not get trauma therapy for our teachers.
00:27:46
Speaker
So all of these things that are happening, the people on the front lines, the people who are more outspoken, we have to step up and we have to start advocating.
00:27:56
Speaker
Take one little piece and just move forward.
00:28:00
Speaker
But, you know, multi-age learning, I mean, absolutely.
00:28:03
Speaker
I saw it work.
00:28:06
Speaker
I love what you're saying about early childhood as well, like mad props to early childhood educators.
00:28:13
Speaker
They're the real experts in play.
00:28:16
Speaker
I'm just a novice in that department.
00:28:19
Speaker
But our classroom, I feel like our class is closer aligned to kindergarten kids than it is to high school kids.
00:28:27
Speaker
The way that they create...
00:28:29
Speaker
spaces for kids to play, recognising the different kinds of play that they can do.
00:28:36
Speaker
The way that they use portfolios and the way that they document learning, that's the stuff, you know, that we should be all trying to do.
00:28:45
Speaker
So I reckon we should be looking more closely at early childhood than anything.
Portfolios vs. Traditional Report Cards
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, I recommend anybody getting the project approach.
00:28:54
Speaker
I don't know if it's still available.
00:28:56
Speaker
I'll look into it, Nick and Chris.
00:28:58
Speaker
But, you know, that book is my professor, although I will say she didn't really love the Trace Meister.
00:29:07
Speaker
But that's OK, just because I'm so outspoken.
00:29:10
Speaker
But she did a great job of doing it.
00:29:13
Speaker
And, you know, we collected all this portfolio and the parents were so happy.
00:29:18
Speaker
joyful at the culminating event at the end of the summer.
00:29:22
Speaker
We gave him this huge portfolio of everything we had done and documented.
00:29:26
Speaker
Do you think that's better than a report card?
00:29:29
Speaker
You better believe it.
00:29:30
Speaker
And Abe, the jump in here, talking about portfolios and talking about play-based learning in general, Karen brought up in chat about just the idea of districts are spending a lot of money trying to bring play-based learning back into education, which to me is – I mean, it's kind of funny considering that that's what –
00:29:50
Speaker
A lot of kids already do, especially younger kids, they play.
00:29:54
Speaker
But teachers don't feel comfortable with the idea that students are just going to start learning just by going out and playing or giving unstructured play or even semi-structured play where you give them a task, but then there's still not a lot of direct teacher control.
00:30:10
Speaker
What advice would you give to educators who...
Is Play a Form of Learning?
00:30:14
Speaker
Not necessarily someone who's here because they likely already agree with this mantra, but to someone here that needs to convince someone else that, hey, play-based learning is important.
00:30:24
Speaker
Here's why you should really inquisition control.
00:30:26
Speaker
Play is learning.
00:30:28
Speaker
My kids, that was probably the number one message that we had to try and get across to people last year.
00:30:36
Speaker
um we created all kinds of opportunities for our kids to go out and and present and they did they spoke to the government they spoke to at district days um and really just pushing that message that play is learning and i think we have to get better um at looking at what is that learning that's that's actually going on when kids play so for me
00:30:58
Speaker
it can be challenging at times to, to create that time and space for kids to just play because people might walk through and go, those kids are just playing.
00:31:09
Speaker
Like there's no learning going on there.
00:31:11
Speaker
So we have to look beyond that to see what is the actual learning going on there.
00:31:15
Speaker
So when we created spaces, we didn't have construction spaces for our kids.
00:31:21
Speaker
We had a real lack of diversity, heaps of hard court spaces and open grass spaces, but not,
00:31:28
Speaker
No real difficulty.
00:31:32
Speaker
a big population of students with disabilities.
00:31:34
Speaker
So creating spaces that kids were actually going to be drawn to and then knowing what to look for.
00:31:40
Speaker
So changing the way that we observe play, like oral language with the young kids.
00:31:46
Speaker
So when we created our mud kitchen, things like private speech, you know, the kids, when they're making their mud pies and things, they're talking through their steps there.
00:31:56
Speaker
They're having those discussions about the play because, you know,
00:32:00
Speaker
Good play is self-directed.
00:32:02
Speaker
Kid has the opportunity to quit whenever they feel they want to.
00:32:08
Speaker
But it's organic.
00:32:10
Speaker
And so if we're not sharing and playing by the rules of the game and verbalising that as we go, then, you know,
00:32:17
Speaker
the game doesn't work.
00:32:19
Speaker
So just looking at things like private speech in kids' play and look at that as an opportunity to build our language in an authentic way rather than, you know, we try and create opportunities to do it in the classroom, but it can actually just happen naturally through play if we know what to look for.
00:32:33
Speaker
I was just going to add on to that about the private conversation.
00:32:37
Speaker
I think that that's such a huge part of what I do is just listen to kids when they don't know that I'm listening.
00:32:45
Speaker
And that sounds creepy, but it's, you know, it's just it's it's crazy.
00:32:49
Speaker
cool.
00:32:50
Speaker
And I wrote a, one of my like first ever teacher blog posts was about, I drive the bus for our field experiences when we take kids out and just like the observations that I can make while driving bus of like in the mirror of, you know, which kids are getting along and like, which kids are like the kids that normally don't get along or just like laughing with each other, or this kid is just totally worn out and asleep or,
00:33:14
Speaker
I know this has been a really good day because everybody's asleep or everybody's laughing or singing or whatever's going on.
00:33:20
Speaker
Or if there's an issue between two kids that I can observe and follow up on later, just being able to have that observation of teenagers being themselves is just so valuable.
00:33:34
Speaker
Yeah, I love that you drive the bus.
00:33:37
Speaker
But yeah, Skylar, it sounds like you drive the bus, though, like in a literal and like a metaphorical way.
00:33:42
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:33:45
Speaker
I couldn't tell at first where you were going with that.
Observing Students in Natural Settings
00:33:47
Speaker
But you're saying, well, I kind of drive the bus.
00:33:49
Speaker
And then you're like, no, literally, I'm driving the bus.
00:33:52
Speaker
If I had my wallet on me right now, I would show you CDL.
00:33:56
Speaker
You know, plus that's it.
00:33:58
Speaker
Who knows in this in this economy, that could be a boon for you, too.
00:34:01
Speaker
You know, that could be a back.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:04
Speaker
Going sour.
00:34:06
Speaker
So so I don't know.
00:34:07
Speaker
I've been kind of feeling snarky here in the last in the last couple of days because, you know, things things like.
00:34:14
Speaker
like Paul Kirshner's 10 deadly sins of education keep popping up in my feed.
00:34:19
Speaker
And Abe, I know that you've interacted with that a little bit too.
00:34:22
Speaker
So I didn't know if you were aware that you're committing about half of the 10 deadly sins in getting kids involved in playing and making and learning by play.
00:34:35
Speaker
So I didn't know if you had a response because you talked a little bit about
00:34:39
Speaker
Just, you know, wanting to maybe dig deeper into what kids are learning through play.
00:34:46
Speaker
But how do you have a response to people who maybe look at that and just say that that is not a good use of time?
00:34:53
Speaker
I mean, I know in my context, when I see kids doing that kind of work, whether it's project based or problem based or the portfolios, all of that seems to me.
00:35:03
Speaker
to be explicit, right?
00:35:04
Speaker
It seems to be like self, self, uh, explanatory, um, uh, self-evident, I guess is the word I'm looking for.
00:35:10
Speaker
Um, so, so I can't imagine walking through that workshop that you're in and not getting that sense of awe.
00:35:17
Speaker
Um, and that, uh, you know, that, that sense that the kids are building something special in their secret garden or everywhere else.
00:35:24
Speaker
How do you, how do you convince people who, you know, might just be, uh, super skeptical that play is learning what's, what's the best way to tackle that?
00:35:34
Speaker
I think it's a real balancing act for me here.
00:35:41
Speaker
We spent four weeks last year where we did not come in this classroom.
00:35:45
Speaker
So we were outside for four weeks and I was really nervous about how that was going to be received because we spent probably six months planning all of our projects and talking about it and visiting places, you know, and the conceptual stuff.
00:36:01
Speaker
But then we had to actually go out and do it.
00:36:04
Speaker
And so, you know,
00:36:06
Speaker
I guess it comes back to your why again, like with stakeholders, knowing that I almost had permission to do it because a couple of years ago we looked at, well, what is the, I think I saw Mark was in on the chat.
00:36:20
Speaker
Mark Sonneman gave me a,
00:36:26
Speaker
a framework for looking at what do you want your learners to actually be when they leave.
00:36:30
Speaker
So the portrait of a learner.
00:36:32
Speaker
And we got together with parents, we got together with students, all of our entire staff.
00:36:36
Speaker
And we came up with, you know, 10 things that we thought, this is actually what we want our kids to be when they leave us.
00:36:43
Speaker
And they were things like trustworthy, you know, able to self-regulate, having empathy for each other.
00:36:50
Speaker
It goes on.
00:36:52
Speaker
And that for me was almost like that's my permission to go out and do the thing that I need to do because, you know, there is my curriculum right there.
00:37:00
Speaker
So with the Australian curriculum, everything that we did, like I can pull bits out and link it up curriculum-wise.
00:37:09
Speaker
But to get outside and actually physically build spaces, that's different.
00:37:14
Speaker
And we brought that inside this year.
00:37:15
Speaker
So we're still working outside and prototyping and building on that stuff.
00:37:19
Speaker
But to bring that same concept inside to create spaces for kids to go and learn.
00:37:24
Speaker
So we've got a studio now because I've got some kids who are just mad keen on music creation, green screen.
00:37:30
Speaker
And we didn't have any spaces for that.
00:37:32
Speaker
So we went, right, well, that's one thing we've got to have right now.
00:37:35
Speaker
So creating those spaces.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
So to get back to your question, how do you convince other people that it's not a waste of time?
00:37:44
Speaker
I think it has to be authentic and contextual for you.
00:37:49
Speaker
I think you've got to know your stakeholders and it's got to come from there.
00:37:53
Speaker
It's got to start and finish with kids.
00:37:57
Speaker
So it sounds too like, so what's interesting is that if I walked into, you know, like your makerspace or anything else, what I'm seeing is the tip of that iceberg that is representative of those months of stakeholder meetings and those months of planning and even, you know, a backlog going back to say, okay, well, what do kids want now that we don't have that we can add?
00:38:23
Speaker
So it's just that cumulative, you know,
00:38:25
Speaker
sort of impact too.
00:38:26
Speaker
So yeah, so it would be interesting to think that when people walk in there, they're seeing the results of all of the things that are not explicit, you know?
00:38:36
Speaker
So that's interesting.
00:38:37
Speaker
So maybe part of...
00:38:41
Speaker
if I'm talking myself through this process, part of that needs to be making those, those, the, the, the sausage making part of it needs to be more in the open as well, you know, just in the sense of bringing in as many voices and people and sharing out that process at just as it is to say, Hey, here's what kids did.
00:39:01
Speaker
Here's what kids made.
00:39:02
Speaker
Here's kids in action.
00:39:03
Speaker
So that, that could be kind of the other half of,
00:39:06
Speaker
of convincing people that it's not just turning kids loose and saying, go do things.
00:39:12
Speaker
So that's interesting.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
And I think like even this year, you know, I'm a contract teacher.
00:39:18
Speaker
I'm year to year.
00:39:18
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:19
Speaker
This is not my space.
00:39:20
Speaker
This space belongs to kids.
00:39:21
Speaker
I don't even know if I'll be here next year.
00:39:24
Speaker
Oh, the product.
00:39:26
Speaker
So I was getting hung up at the beginning of this year because, you know, kids and parents come in with these expectations about, you know, they see the finished product.
00:39:33
Speaker
They see the things that kids do.
00:39:34
Speaker
And it's like, oh, OK, so what amazing thing are you going to be creating this year?
00:39:38
Speaker
Like, I have no idea.
00:39:39
Speaker
I literally don't plan this stuff like it happens through the kids.
00:39:43
Speaker
So it has to be about the process.
00:39:46
Speaker
you know, process over product.
00:39:47
Speaker
It's great that we have, you know, all this furniture that we've built and these spaces and stuff that we've built, but the process is the thing that really matters.
00:39:54
Speaker
And then to come back to Chris's question, so what does that look like?
00:39:58
Speaker
How do you justify the time that we're spending?
00:40:01
Speaker
You know, we're not doing a really rigid, siloed curriculum framework.
00:40:05
Speaker
How do you justify that to your stakeholders?
00:40:07
Speaker
Well, that's going to look different for everyone, I think.
00:40:10
Speaker
I'm in a primary school context.
00:40:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:15
Speaker
That's it, isn't it?
00:40:16
Speaker
If you're in a district that focuses so much on process, being comfortable with the fact that it's going to be different from year to year, from kid to kid, has to be part of that whole stakeholder conversation and everything, because I think
00:40:32
Speaker
I'm trying to, you know, draw some connections between your context, Abe, and like mine in Ankeny, Iowa.
00:40:38
Speaker
I feel like parents and stakeholders in my context would not be comfortable with that, that kind of learning.
00:40:44
Speaker
And there's just, you know, I guess I could try to convince them of some things like that, but that, that would, that would just be like oil and water.
00:40:50
Speaker
There wouldn't be that alignment there.
00:40:52
Speaker
So, so that's, that's really interesting.
00:40:54
Speaker
It's a, it's a mindset change that from process to, to outcomes.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, it comes back to, you know, what do we want school to be?
00:41:03
Speaker
So, you know, what's the purpose of school?
00:41:04
Speaker
So if you're answering that within your context and your stakeholders, then, you know, go for it.
00:41:12
Speaker
Like find out what works for you, but got to take risks.
00:41:16
Speaker
You know, we have to be agile.
00:41:18
Speaker
We do lots of prototyping here.
00:41:19
Speaker
So, you know, creating it, observing it, seeing how kids might or might not use the space, you know,
00:41:27
Speaker
um at the moment i love that i've really become the the the middle guy like kids are going over my head they're taking um proposal stuff straight to our principal and going you know they're putting their proposals together and going and trying to raise money um trying to convince him that you know can we do these things and yeah that that's a really exciting and interesting part of what we're doing here
00:41:50
Speaker
So something Abe that has kind of been revolving around my head here as we've been having this discussion is pertaining to virtual learning.
00:41:58
Speaker
It seems like our goal then as teachers should be to basically find ways to learn what students want to do since we're not in a physical space
Inspiring Students in Virtual Environments
00:42:08
Speaker
together.
00:42:08
Speaker
Uh, so like putting together surveys, asking them literally face to face, like virtually like what we're doing right now.
00:42:14
Speaker
Um,
00:42:15
Speaker
And then kind of guiding them through inspiration.
00:42:17
Speaker
So saying like, hey, you know, going outside isn't off the table.
00:42:20
Speaker
What are some things that you'd want to do outside?
00:42:22
Speaker
So rather than starting the conversation off with this project that you planned for three months, that's just insane, that just has so much descriptive information surrounding it.
00:42:31
Speaker
Instead, just starting with the kid, talking to him, having that dialogue, finding ways to connect with him, making sure that you can actually hear from everyone because you might not be able to.
00:42:39
Speaker
And that really is the troubleshooting part of things.
00:42:42
Speaker
It's just making sure that you hear students.
00:42:45
Speaker
If you don't try to remedy that, then once you have that knowledge, that's when we can start seeking out and saying, oh, here's a cool app you could use like Seek, the phone app, or maybe it's something else.
00:42:55
Speaker
What are your thoughts on that?
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah, I guess if you're looking for a way to begin, we just started with an audit of our playground.
00:43:03
Speaker
That's it.
00:43:04
Speaker
Simply put the question to them, how do we make our school a better place?
00:43:08
Speaker
That was our guiding question.
00:43:10
Speaker
We threw around a heap of ideas and we came back to play.
00:43:13
Speaker
Our playground, you know, is not great.
00:43:15
Speaker
It's old.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:18
Speaker
That might be a little off track, but, you know, it's fantastic.
00:43:21
Speaker
It's amazing that we have created these opportunities for kids to own the learning, for them to create these spaces.
00:43:26
Speaker
But we're one of the most underfunded schools, you know, in our country as far as capital works go.
00:43:32
Speaker
You know, we're creating this inequitable two-tiered system where we have, you know, the wealthy over here and we have, you know, the have-nots over here.
00:43:40
Speaker
And the funding is just wrong.
00:43:43
Speaker
So while it's fantastic that the kids are doing all this stuff, like, it worries me a little bit that we had to do it.
00:43:48
Speaker
But, you know, that's a whole other story.
00:43:52
Speaker
But getting back to my point, we started with an audit.
00:43:55
Speaker
So we looked at our playground.
00:43:56
Speaker
We went, well, what's missing?
00:43:58
Speaker
Like there's a lack of diversity out there.
00:44:00
Speaker
What don't we have?
00:44:02
Speaker
And the kids went out.
00:44:04
Speaker
It turned into an art project because then we had to look at mapping.
00:44:07
Speaker
We needed to design a map from bird's eye view.
00:44:11
Speaker
We had to get a sense of scale.
00:44:13
Speaker
Some kids went out and measured and worked out perimeters and whatever of the school scale drawings.
00:44:18
Speaker
But they actually looked at, well, okay, what do we need?
00:44:21
Speaker
And the kids worked that out.
00:44:22
Speaker
And that's where the play-based stuff came in looking at, okay, do we have opportunities for fantasy play, adventure play, construction play, gathering, collecting, like those elements.
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:34
Speaker
And yeah, and then we went from there.
00:44:36
Speaker
So it's just starting with an audit of what have you got?
00:44:39
Speaker
What do you need?
00:44:40
Speaker
And going from there.
00:44:41
Speaker
Well, I think that actually builds into the question that Mark is asking in chat, which is the prototyping process.
00:44:48
Speaker
So once you have done the audit and you figured out, okay, here it is, what is what we need?
00:44:54
Speaker
How do you go through like testing it, evaluating it, ensuring that it's successful, that kind of stuff?
00:44:58
Speaker
A placemaking framework, which I have here.
00:45:02
Speaker
And it's just really simple.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's five
Prototyping Educational Spaces
00:45:05
Speaker
steps.
00:45:05
Speaker
So it's defining your place and identifying your stakeholders.
00:45:09
Speaker
So, you know, that's really for us that look like just chatting to kids.
00:45:15
Speaker
So, you know, we collected a whole heap of data.
00:45:17
Speaker
We surveyed students.
00:45:19
Speaker
A couple of kids just love data.
00:45:24
Speaker
So like, go figure, you know, they literally sat for like a day and just pulled this data apart.
00:45:31
Speaker
And when we talked to kids about, you know, what kind of spaces would you want?
00:45:35
Speaker
The data was really interesting, especially for a space like a mud kitchen, because when they looked at it, they went, well, only 8% of our kids actually said that they'd use a mud kitchen.
00:45:43
Speaker
So, well, okay, are we wasting our time creating a space like that?
00:45:48
Speaker
But what it turned out when they dug into the data was that almost 50% of the six and seven year old girls at our school desperately wanted that space, but no one else really did.
00:45:57
Speaker
So then, you know, by identifying our stakeholders, we're really able to target and then have conversations with those specific kids about making that space for them, you know, and from there, because they're the ones that are going to use it, just observing the way that they played, conversations with them and, and,
00:46:15
Speaker
You know, they've decided that they need more water access there.
00:46:17
Speaker
They have to walk quite a long way to get the water for the mud.
00:46:19
Speaker
So we're looking at, okay, we have rainwater tanks here.
00:46:22
Speaker
So how do we connect them up?
00:46:23
Speaker
How do we get that water down into those spaces?
00:46:25
Speaker
You know, when it's 40 degrees here, getting misting sprays over the top of the mud kitchen so kids can play outside on the 40 degree days in that mud space, you know, just little things that, you know, these are kids ideas that are coming up with that stuff.
00:46:41
Speaker
um so evaluating your spaces and identifying any issues um the the vision for the place so can you find an example of the space that already exists and and how do you take that and bring it into your space short-term experiments um so prototyping a bit like we did with our day of play you know that was a big tick for our
00:47:01
Speaker
this kind of plays is possible, but in just short bursts and then ongoing reevaluation and long-term improvements.
00:47:10
Speaker
So, you know, making these places permanent.
00:47:15
Speaker
Hope that answers your question, Mark.
00:47:16
Speaker
No, I just wanted to jump in there and,
00:47:18
Speaker
Abe, I'm really excited to hear you talk about your experience with outdoor play.
00:47:24
Speaker
And please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but I'm thinking you're working with probably 11 and 12 year olds.
00:47:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:47:34
Speaker
So we are, you know, in my province, we're promoting that play-based philosophy.
00:47:41
Speaker
Right now, we implemented full-day kindergarten in probably about three years ago.
00:47:48
Speaker
And so we've been working with different grades, grade one and grade two, and trying to promote...
00:47:54
Speaker
that play-based philosophy.
00:47:56
Speaker
And I guess, you know, with play-based learning, there's some uncomfortableness with that term play.
Teacher Roles in Play-Based Learning
00:48:06
Speaker
Some feel that, you know, given their own experience, that play is probably just, you know, frivolous.
00:48:14
Speaker
So trying to have them buy into that.
00:48:19
Speaker
And I guess for us, it's all right for teachers to feel vulnerable when trying to first implement that process, that philosophy.
00:48:29
Speaker
And so what we've started with is looking at...
00:48:34
Speaker
you know, what are you doing in your day that, you know, possibly could be linked to play-based learning?
00:48:41
Speaker
So once they start thinking about that, then they're coming up with all these ideas.
00:48:46
Speaker
And then we try to move into, you know, the...
00:48:49
Speaker
the play base, these are some things that you can do, but the emphasis on also on outdoor play.
00:48:57
Speaker
And we do have some reluctance there.
00:48:59
Speaker
We're in a province that has very harsh winters.
00:49:02
Speaker
So that is somewhat of a challenge.
00:49:07
Speaker
Even like our, you know, right now we have students who are not getting outside enough and we talk about the mental health issues that we have in the world and, you know, just getting out in nature.
00:49:19
Speaker
And it's not only just being out in nature, but the teacher is also takes a very active role with the children once in that play based in that philosophy.
00:49:31
Speaker
So the teacher, you know, parachutes in and works with the children and tries to, you know, have them build on their passions or their curiosities.
00:49:42
Speaker
But also the teacher's got to recognize when to stand back and let them take control of that.
00:49:48
Speaker
And I think that's some of the issues that we're having as well with some of the reluctance.
00:49:54
Speaker
is, yeah, these are kindergarten students.
00:49:59
Speaker
So basically, when we're talking about our younger learners, some teachers are reluctant to go too far with play-based learning because...
00:50:11
Speaker
well, we've got to cover this outcome or that outcome in the curriculum.
00:50:15
Speaker
But I think it's just giving up some of that control.
00:50:18
Speaker
And I think that's where some of that reluctance come in to play there with teachers.
00:50:24
Speaker
And, you know, Abe, you did touch on one thing.
00:50:27
Speaker
Some teachers feel that they're being judged if their students are just playing or they're outside playing.
00:50:33
Speaker
Then, you know, I feel that, you know, some of them have made the comment that I don't know what
00:50:39
Speaker
Parents are going to say when they see that or when other educators in the building, what are they going to say about that?
00:50:46
Speaker
So these are some of the issues that we've come up, you know, come up against.
00:50:51
Speaker
But I think it's so critical that we need it so much.
Challenges of Play-Based Learning Implementation
00:50:55
Speaker
Right.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:56
Speaker
And I think that for me comes back to that, you know, observation of learning.
00:51:01
Speaker
Like, what are you seeing when we're seeing kids actually play?
00:51:05
Speaker
What are we willing to sacrifice to move in that direction for the outdoor playing?
00:51:11
Speaker
That's spot on.
00:51:14
Speaker
You've got to give up.
00:51:14
Speaker
You've got to be willing to sacrifice to make the time and space for this stuff to actually happen.
00:51:19
Speaker
So what are you willing to give up to get there or how can we transfer that learning to the outdoors?
00:51:27
Speaker
That's something I'm not great at that.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yet it's something that I'm trying to get better at is finding ways to take the content of the curriculum and actually authentically get outside, not just go outside because it's a novel thing to do, but actually meaningful ways to do that.
00:51:47
Speaker
We've got a conservation park.
00:51:49
Speaker
I can see that in my window.
00:51:51
Speaker
Antarctica used to meet the coastline down here.
00:51:54
Speaker
It's one of the most geologically...
00:51:57
Speaker
significant beaches in australia and it's a 15 minute walk from my classroom uh and we we barely get down there and it just seems crazy to me that we're not getting into there and and doing all of this connecting with our community um so that for us is an opportunity to get out again it's going to look different for for everyone's context
00:52:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:19
Speaker
And like we have some teachers that really taken them and ran that philosophy.
00:52:25
Speaker
And, you know, within the classroom, like play based learning has been such a huge part of kindergarten anyway.
00:52:32
Speaker
But that transition, like some of the reluctance for outside.
00:52:36
Speaker
And I don't necessarily mean taking students out and having them in the in the classroom.
00:52:43
Speaker
you know swinging or on the seesaw or the teeter-totter or whatever but actually outside like bringing the out the the classroom outside um uh you know there's and i guess you're just trying to work through it and try to get a
00:52:59
Speaker
a better understanding of what that looks like and of course as we moved up to you know through grade one and grade two that reluctance or that uh i guess vulnerability is heightened uh because you know it's uh it's a different ball game for some of these teachers all right so with our uh few minutes that we have left i i think that and dennis i think that's a really uh
00:53:24
Speaker
It's an interesting point on I think that something that could be built upon this conversation is finding ways to effectively communicate what the results are of what we do.
00:53:35
Speaker
I like, for example, showing those teachers what Abe is doing in his classes.
00:53:39
Speaker
It really is amazing.
00:53:40
Speaker
I think sometimes people look at the work of like what progressive educators do at the end and think that that is amazing.
00:53:48
Speaker
That is like the summary.
00:53:50
Speaker
Well, I mean, it is the summary of everything that you did, but there's a lot of work that goes into that process, which is what Nick was talking about earlier.
00:53:55
Speaker
And just kind of seeing the fruits of your labor when it is, when you do listen to students and what that means.
00:54:00
Speaker
And also just like the, especially for play-based learning for younger kids, the research is, it's hundreds of years of research on the importance of play for small children, especially like imaginary-based learning and social emotional wellbeing, that kind of stuff.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:15
Speaker
With the few minutes that we have left, does anyone have any final questions for Abe?
00:54:21
Speaker
We're thinking about the word play, and that's what people are sort of struggling with, the word play.
00:54:27
Speaker
Is there a way to morph that word into like creation or just use another word for play so that it doesn't evoke that they're not doing anything mentality in the parents?
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:45
Speaker
like replacing play, like to play with to create or another word?
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:54
Speaker
Ah, Parsi Solsberg talks about that.
00:54:57
Speaker
I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but he talks about, you know, replacing play with, you know, the fact that the kids are experimenting.
00:55:05
Speaker
They're doing these, you know, short-term experiments.
00:55:09
Speaker
I'll have to, I'll look it up and flick that over to you, Tracy.
00:55:15
Speaker
But I really like that.
00:55:16
Speaker
I like that analogy that, yeah, some people really do struggle with the idea of play and that it's a waste of time when actually it's not.
00:55:23
Speaker
It's systematic and, you know, and it's engaging and authentic and, you know, that creation, the flow that kids get into when they're playing, you know.
00:55:34
Speaker
And it just feels so magical when you're in that moment.
00:55:37
Speaker
There's like nothing like it.
00:55:39
Speaker
It's like this joy that you feel that you just, it's indescribable unless you're actually implementing it.
00:55:47
Speaker
It's an indescribable feeling.
00:55:49
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:55:50
Speaker
It doesn't feel amazing.
00:55:52
Speaker
Our classroom, it doesn't feel that different to most other classrooms.
00:55:58
Speaker
I think it's just...
00:56:00
Speaker
maybe it's just a slightly different mindset.
00:56:02
Speaker
Like if you walk through my classroom most days, it's going to look like most year six, seven classrooms in South Australia.
00:56:09
Speaker
I think the big difference is that, you know, we're getting to a point where it's more student directed than teacher directed.
00:56:18
Speaker
So it's me stepping back and creating that time and space for kids to actually do this stuff.
00:56:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:25
Speaker
Because with our project, there's no way I could have micromanaged all of the stuff that happened last year.
00:56:30
Speaker
Like, it was crazy.
00:56:32
Speaker
During the third-term holidays that we had going into that third-term, like...
00:56:37
Speaker
I knew exactly how much work there was to make our early quite grasp the amount of work that we were going to have to do.
00:56:44
Speaker
But I couldn't micromanage that into being.
00:56:46
Speaker
They had to own that.
00:56:47
Speaker
So they had to own the process leading up to it.
00:56:49
Speaker
So for me, it's that stepping back and creating time and space for the kids to actually get their head around it and drive this change.
00:56:58
Speaker
so i i think we're about to wrap things up but there is one more question that we can take really quick from mark hey mark which i don't know mark hey long time listener first time caller abe hey i like your hat thanks yeah um my question for you is about risky play um we've talked a little bit about i know in writing but is there a space for that or is there a context for that in your playground right now
00:57:26
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:57:27
Speaker
And again, that was one of the things that really drove our project last year was where are the risks?
00:57:35
Speaker
So the kids in our class, I think they're calculated, we spend like 1,600 hours in our playground across their school life, 1,600 hours out
Encouraging Healthy Risk-Taking in Play
00:57:46
Speaker
in our playground.
00:57:46
Speaker
And all really we had was open spaces.
00:57:49
Speaker
We had that cookie cutter, you know, plastic and metal playgrounds.
00:57:53
Speaker
And I was like, well, okay, there are some risks out there for the younger kids, but what are the risks for the 12 and 13-year-olds who are in like, you know, the seventh or eighth year in this playground?
00:58:04
Speaker
The risks just didn't exist.
00:58:06
Speaker
And so then we have kids creating risks in unhealthy ways on the stuff that already existed.
00:58:12
Speaker
So how was what it was all about?
00:58:15
Speaker
So we looked at things like fire, you know.
00:58:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:18
Speaker
We had open campfires and we did some cooking.
00:58:22
Speaker
We cooked damper, you know, over a fire pit.
00:58:25
Speaker
That was one of the things that Maria actually from Nature Players, they brought to our day of play.
00:58:31
Speaker
Using knives and hammers and tools, you know, in an authentic way in a yard.
00:58:36
Speaker
So for my kids, that looks like building and actually creating.
00:58:39
Speaker
But where are the opportunities in the yard for risk taking with tools?
00:58:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:43
Speaker
bikes and scooters that we're about to introduce, like speed in the yard.
00:58:47
Speaker
You know, the risk assessment around that.
00:58:51
Speaker
Again, Nature Play SA have some really good resources, which I'll share with Chris around getting started with this stuff.
00:58:58
Speaker
So the risk benefits of this type of play.
00:59:01
Speaker
And I know our education department actually encourages this stuff.
00:59:06
Speaker
So for some reason, as teachers, we feel like, you know, in our schools that we're risk adverse when actually we recognize the benefits of this on tackling things like overweight and obesity.
00:59:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:17
Speaker
So creating risk is massive.
00:59:20
Speaker
Risk that is comfortable for...
00:59:24
Speaker
Kids, it's gonna look different for everyone.
00:59:26
Speaker
I think we've talked about that in the, I think you've talked about that in the past, you know, what does that risk look like?
00:59:32
Speaker
You know, you've gotta let kids run with that and learn to take risks by making, yeah, take risks by taking risks, so yeah.
00:59:43
Speaker
I agree.
00:59:43
Speaker
I mean, playgrounds for me are the standardized programming and assessment of outdoor play.
00:59:50
Speaker
You structure it in a certain way.
00:59:51
Speaker
They can only do certain things with the equipment that's out there.
00:59:54
Speaker
And you get what you put out there, right?
00:59:57
Speaker
So those kids play in prescribed ways with those things, and they don't get to really explore what play means.
01:00:02
Speaker
All right.
01:00:02
Speaker
So I actually think this conversation has gone really interesting.
01:00:05
Speaker
There's a lot of things being shared here that I think could be applied to anyone's classroom, regardless of their grade level, especially these ideas of different types of frameworks and where to get started and what it means to communicate, et cetera.
01:00:17
Speaker
We'll go ahead and we'll take all this information and place it somewhere, probably like a Google Doc, and then link it to something.
01:00:23
Speaker
So that way you have access to it.
01:00:24
Speaker
Plus we'll share out the recording as well.
01:00:28
Speaker
Once again, Abe, thanks so much for joining us.
01:00:30
Speaker
Thanks to all of you for attending and speaking with us.
01:00:34
Speaker
I think this is a really good, informative discussion.
01:00:36
Speaker
Yeah, thank you very much for having me.
01:00:38
Speaker
And yeah, thanks to everyone for, you know, giving up their Saturday evening to have a chat.
01:00:45
Speaker
I mean, honestly, at this point, Saturday evening just feels like every other day.
01:00:51
Speaker
So it's something.
01:00:53
Speaker
But yeah, seriously, guys, thanks for joining us.
01:00:56
Speaker
And we'll talk to you soon.
01:00:57
Speaker
Be on the lookout.
01:00:57
Speaker
Bye, guys.
01:00:57
Speaker
for some follow-up information.
01:00:59
Speaker
Have a good day.
01:01:00
Speaker
See you later.