Wild Things in the forest

Simon writes:

There's a kind of paradox about play in the classroom. It's something to do with play being a freely chosen thing that is pleasurable to do and involves making and changing your own rules. And yet - there is  the teacher. What is she doing? Can she 'teach' when there's play?

Sometimes of course, the teacher has little role: children don't need us adults to play and are of course learning through their play nonetheless.

But how can the teacher play a part?

It usually helps me to look at a particular instance, so it helps that we document some of what happens in our spaces.

As an Early Years team, we share documentation of moments in the day where we think interesting play and learning is happening. We talk about what's going on and look at some of the approaches to learning involved. I chose some music making in the forest as our focus this week, writing about what I had observed. Here is some of what I wrote for that:

Forest school had a Where the Wild Things Are flavour this week, with face painting, loud percussion and Jimi Hendrix playing Wild Thing, which all gave the afternoon a festival feel!

It was interesting how the percussion went when Rachel took over. Still working with the children’s exuberant banging, she introduced the idea of stopping and starting, with a fast rhythm to begin and slower beats as the signal to stop.

After this, she quickly handed over the responsibility for signalling the starts and stops to a student, and it was impressive to see how they took control, and the others managed to follow them. There was a strong sense that children were working from their native musicality and doing what came comfortably to them, but the element of taking responsibility for the starting and stopping, and the need to be watching and listening added depth to the play.

Rachel added what she'd seen to our documentation:

The children were keen to be the ‘conductor’ and they started saying ‘can I be the ductor now?’ After a time when the children were mainly saying ‘start’ or ‘stop’ as they were leading, A. introduced the idea of making a certain sound to be start and another sound to be stopped. We talked about it and agreed that is what we would do. The children continued playing in this way, taking turns to make up a starting sound and a stopping sound.

Then I introduced the idea of not making a sound at all, but using a sign or a movement with the hand to signal starting and stopping. I. was keen to do this and used the wooden spoon to help with the signs. As we were busy in the forest, I left the children to their own devices for a bit, and when I returned, a few new members had joined.

S. loves playing with the musical instruments in the class and I often join her. She particularly enjoys singing and playing the instruments and asks me to help her with the songs. When I joined her in the forest, she said ‘the clock song!’ so we started singing and playing the instruments in time but halfway through the song she said ‘no! Stop!’, so we all stopped and waited for her instruction. She doesn't have a lot of English, so she tried to communicate her idea. She pointed at me and said ‘you tick, tock, tick, tock’, then she pointed to A. and somebody else to do ‘tikka tikka tikka tikka tikka tikka tock’, and said ‘I - booiiiinnnng!’ so we all arranged ourselves to play our instruments in the way she had decided. S. was really engaged and was watching and correcting if any of us got it wrong! Such a great example of conducting and arranging!

-§-

So, returning to that 'paradox', what is the teacher's role in the play? What happened here?

Firstly of course, there's another teacher: the environment and resources. Our forest provides it's own wonderful resources for play, both as a space,, an ever-changing environment, and with it's trees, stones, leaves, soil and sticks. We added in the element of a story and of facepainting that refered back to the story.

Then there's the interplay between the students natural powers with music and with social organisation and the teacher's role. The children already know how to:

• make a loud noise
• make a rhythm
• stop and start things
• fit around each other
• organise roles in play

So, Rachel connected with what the children are already doing, getting them to combine these elements in a way that continues to be comfortable and pleasurable. Their loud banging becomes... music, and it's very satisfying for everyone. She suggests a start/stop sound pattern, that modulated into a signal given by a conductor. Then a child takes the conducting a step further, assigning different elements to each player, and Rachel supports her in that, acting as a catalyst for something the child has in mind and the group is enjoying doing.

Maybe that word catalyst helps to unravel the apparent paradox: the teacher not as the agent, but as the enabler, allowing the natural powers of the students lead the way to new possibilities.

And it turns out that the exigencies of music - here, to have conductors and arrangers - are in sync with the needs of young children - to work together, to lead and be led by each other, to organise roles. Catalyse the one and your catalysing the others.