A Wonderful Article by Friends School Teacher Josh Valle

I’m always amazed by the multiple talents that my colleagues possess.  In addition to the many gifts they bring to their day-to-day work here at school, many members of our professional community are talented artists, musicians, woodworkers, etc.  And, of course, many of our employees are also brilliant writers.  I came across fresh evidence of this fact recently when I read this article on "Spiritual Nurture and Young Children," written by Pre-Kindergarten teacher, Josh Valle, and published in Friends Journal, a highly-respected publication serving the Quaker community.

 

For those of you who know of Josh’s thoughtful and insightful work with our youngest students, it will be no surprise to you that he so powerfully articulates in this piece the delicate balancing act of the teacher’s craft between guidance and openness, between the inherent desire to direct our students’ experiences and the educational benefits of relinquishing that  control.  And he does it all through the metaphor of a stink bug!

 

I hope you enjoy this thought-provoking article as much as I did!

Playing with Fire (and Nails, and Tools, and Mud)

This article from NPR Ed includes an interview with Erin Davis, a documentary director whose latest film The Land traces the development of the adventure playground movement.  Her film focuses in particular on a playground in Wales known as "The Land" that features all the elements we modern parents spend so much time and energy keeping out of our children's lives; fire, tools, nails, and lots of sharp edges.  It's important to note that, especially in Europe (where these facilities have become increasingly common) there are "playworkers" who staff the playgrounds and monitor the safety of children, but are trained to intervene only if absolutely necessary.

I am eager to see the film when it is released, as this phenomenon seems to me to speak to the natural impulse all children have to take risks and the benefits of allowing them to do so.  As Davis says in the article, "(Children) have the play drive. It's up to us to kind of provide the kinds of opportunities for them to really follow through on it."  Personally, I know hardly anyone of my generation who did not occasionally play in unsafe spaces like construction sites, or, for that matter, woods, at great length  and entirely unsupervised in their childhood.  And yet I know almost no parent of my generation who will admit to allowing their children to do the same.   In Davis's mind, "...what's really happening at the heart of The Land is child-directed play and loose parts. So kids have time, space and stuff. I think the very first baby steps we can do is provide kids with loose parts that are simple, and follow their lead in what they are interested in."

While I don't anticipate the students at Friends playing with fire (with or without playworker supervision!) anytime soon, this documentary and the movement it chronicles raise some much-needed questions about the way we conceive of play, freedom, and risk in modern times, and whether, in our quest for maximum safety we've forfeited valuable opportunities for our children's growth.