Making Space for Teachers to Play
By Louisa Penfold, Ph.D.
As educators, we often talk about the importance of play in young children’s lives. We see the joy that play brings to kids: How it opens opportunities for moments of meaningful and creative interactions with the world.
As Fredrich Froebel, the founder of the first kindergarten, once proclaimed: “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul.”
I am confident that if Froebel was around today, and he knew about all the pressures early childhood educators currently face, he would add on to his original quote something like: “Oh, and teachers, I know you are ridiculously busy with all that marking and planning, but try not to forget about your own souls, too! Make time to play! Even if it is just for 10 minutes, take a moment to draw your breakfast, dance in your living room, and let your mind wonder. Playing is not only important for your wellbeing, but also reminds us of how important it is for children!”
Making time and space for teachers to engage in playful thinking can be tricky. With so much administration and planning that needs to be done, we need to actively make opportunities for it to happen.
In this article I talk about why play is so important for teachers and share an example of what this can look like in action, in the form of a ‘Cardboard Construction’ professional development workshop.
Why Does Play Matter?
Play is a deeply creative act.
Artists play often. They play with materials, tools, ideas, and emotions. They ask questions, pull things apart, make new creations, and imagine what alternative futures may be possible.
Young children engage with the world with a similar magnitude of curiosity. Why do cars exist? Why does the moon come out at night? Why do I ask so many ‘why’ questions?
Play gives space and time for exploring these questions. It allows for people – big and small – to experiment, express, destruct, and construct understandings about themselves, others, and the ever-changing world around them.
While the importance of play in childhood development is clear, an increased focus on teaching children literacy and numeracy skills to prepare them for entrance into school, has resulted in the reduction of play in early childhood settings (Moss, 2012).
However, play is a complex cognitive, social, emotional, and embodied learning process. It is deeply intertwined with who we are, and who we can become in the world. Miguel Sicart, a play theorist, elaborates on this to say: “To play is to be in the world. Playing is a form of understanding what surrounds us and who we are and is a way of engaging with others. Play is a mode of being in the world” (Sicart, 2014).
Play is so much more than a frivolous activity, it is a human right (UNCRC, 1989).
Giving space for teachers to engage in play opens opportunities to think individually and collectively about what else is possible in education.
It gives space for educators to have fun, engage in joyful hands-on learning, while also asking questions like: How can I set up creative environments in classrooms? What assumptions do I bring to my work with children? In what new ways can I support children’s creativity?
Play is inherently oppositional to formulated and instrumentalized ways of thinking and being. It helps teachers to move away from a mentality of “we do things in this particular way because this is how they have always been done”.
Playful Thinking with Cardboard
On a bright and cold February morning, a group of 40 educators gathered in a studio at the Chicago Botanic Gardens to explore how the experimental practices of modern artists can be drawn on to support children’s play.
The session, which I facilitated, was run as part of the Alliance for Early Childhood’s Preschool-Kindergarten Summit. Its purpose was to give time and space for teachers to experiment with cardboard as a creative material for art-making, and consider how we could then use this to set up play spaces for children where they learn through play with cardboard.
The session started with an introduction to the creative work of artists Charlotte Posenenske (1930-1985) and Louise Nevelson (1899-1988). We talked about how these amazing female artists had explored concepts such as balance, shape, size, and dimension through their careers. We then discussed how we could take their art as inspiration to set up play spaces for children.
In particular, how we can intentionally select different types of cardboard, tools, vocabulary, and techniques and introduce these components over time to scaffold children’s creative thinking in different directions. By examining Posenenske and Nevelson’s ways of working with cardboard, together we were able to extend our own thinking around the material’s creative potential in both our own and children’s play.
Teachers then engaged in their own play with cardboard. Optional play prompts were made available including:
How can we explore balance with cardboard?
How can we explore shape with cardboard?
How can we explore dimension with cardboard?
Participants then worked in small groups to play and make cardboard sculptures.
At the conclusion of the 60-minute workshop, we came together to reflect on our experience. When asked about how it felt to play with the cardboard, participants described feeling ‘freeing’, ‘fun’, ‘hesitant at first’, ‘collaborative’, and ‘like I should be documenting, not playing myself’. We also discussed possible modifications to the cardboard construction activity so it could be adapted to different classrooms and communities.
Looking Towards a Playful Future
This workshop shares a small moment in which teachers were able to come together to create, make, and play together.
At a time of increased pressure for early childhood to focus on teaching children standardized curriculum through highly structured learning experiences, making space for children and teachers to play seems like a radical act.
These moments of collective playfulness are rare yet deeply important in giving space for generating new ways for teaching and learning with children.
Bibliography
Moss, P (2012). Readiness, partnership, a meeting place? Some thoughts on the possible relationship between early childhood and compulsory school education. Forum, 54(3), p.355-368
Sicart, M (2014). Play Matters. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
UNCRC (1989). United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York.
Dr. Louisa Penfold is a Lecturer and the Co-Chair of the Arts & Learning Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She runs the blog Art Play Children Learning (www.louisapenfold.com). Dr. Penfold was the keynote speaker at The Alliance for Early Childhood’s 8th Annual Preschool-Kindergarten Summit.