Play and Outdoor Learning

Speaker 1 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. I'm super stoked for this. Do note that this is supported by our Patreon backers, so Human Restoration Project does all this stuff for free as a result of people getting us like $13 a month. That really keeps us going and make sure that we can keep getting, some cool stuff coming to you. Big thing for this is just participating. The more people that get involved in the conversation, the better this is gonna go and the more exciting it's going to be. Just make sure that when other people are chatting, just mute yourself, it makes things easier, there's less background noise. That's also less awkward if something were to happen. So just some introductions here, my name is Chris McNutt, I'm a high school digital media arts instructor. I teach at a public school in Ohio, and I'm the founder of Human Restoration Project. If you visit our website, is humanrestorationproject.org, you'll find a ton of free resources surrounding progressive education. Our focus is on giving students experiences, drawing upon their knowledge, and really just empowering them to succeed. And I'll push it over here to Abe Moore who's gonna be our primary speaker here today. You wanna introduce yourself? Yeah. So good morning from, yeah, South Australia.

Speaker 2 My name's Abe Moore. I'm a u six seven primary school teacher here in in Adelaide. And it's really nice to be here this morning. It's great to be involved with this. So thank you, Chris, for the invitation.

Speaker 1 I'm very excited. Think this is gonna be a really interesting conversation, especially in light of, obviously, there's nothing else really to talk about right now outside of COVID nineteen. But I think there is a place for outdoor and play based education, especially now when everyone's going outside. Today was the first warm day in Ohio in quite a while. 70 and sunny. And it was amazing how many people were more than normal on a sunny day. I mean, I felt like there was a 100 people at the park, so it was impressive. And I think that was a place there for us to kind of instill some education. So we have three questions here in chat, that we can kind of dive through at our own pace. Feel free to interject at any time. Just say something in chat like saying, hey, I want to say something, I have a question, etcetera. And we'll just go with that and make it very organic. The plan is to talk for roughly an hour. So let's go ahead and get started. 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. I mean, you're literally sitting in a building that students co created with you. So why don't you talk about that for a bit, and then we'll go from there.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So a few years back, we started looking at how can we engage kids more in their own learning. I was very traditional with my pedagogy. I'm a PE teacher by training and I'd stopped thrown into a classroom a few years back and really had to find my way from there. But kids just weren't engaging the way that I wanted them to. Like it was very teacher directed everything we did. I was very much looking at how? How do we help the kids to take more ownership of what they do? So, yeah, it's been a big journey to this point. And everything that you guys have done, the Human Restoration Project over the last couple of years has been massive for me. Furniture and one that you can see behind us was built by the kids a couple of years ago. We held an exhibition of stories and artwork. I like a quote that Ira Sokol has. He says that we need genius weeks and direct instruction hours. I've kind of taken that to heart over the last especially the last couple of years. So last year, we took on a project called Project Reimaginate, where we just wanted to rethink what our school could actually be. And now, even walking this morning, I see the kids' fingerprints everywhere. The school really is starting to feel like it belongs to kids. Project itself, we spent months 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? Like, again, Ira and Pam Moran and Chad Ratcliffe, they talk about in timeless learning. 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. So that's been a really big part of our journey. Actually working out, well, hey, who want do to be? What are kids going to have? What skill sets and values and virtues they're gonna they're gonna have when they leave us at the end of their, yeah, seven years or eight years that they have with us? So

Speaker 1 for for those that are possibly less familiar, you share all the time on Twitter these, basically outdoor experiences that students have, like designing play. They're literally designing spaces outside that they can play in. How do you kind of start that from inception to actually having students create these things? Are they just jumping right into it? Is there a methodology? How does that all work? It's

Speaker 2 messy. It's really messy. It's a little bit daunting sometimes too. We have quite a few people that are interested in coming visit. And it's like, if you walk through and some days see what's going on, it's very organic. It has to be led by kids. When we took on we had a day of play last year. That was kind of about product. We're all about process, but we wanted to have an endpoint, an exhibition of the learning. 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. So lots of the things that we actually built, they're temporary. So a couple of them are now permanent spaces. Things like We created a scooter track down on our basketball courts. We've got huge, huge grounds, but a very small school for our context. The kids, yeah, we were inspired by Better Block. They do prototyping of streets and drawing people back into communities. And they do things like cornflower paint. So we cornflower painted a whole heap of bike tracks and we got tires donated and painted them up to make chicanes. That was a space. We recognized that we needed a quiet space for kids to play in. So the kids created a secret garden that took this out of bounds, rundown space and actually turned it into kind of like a sanctuary, really. It's part outdoor classroom for kids. It's it's just a quiet space for kids to go and play. And and all of these ideas, they didn't necessarily turn out the way that we had planned them. They did a heap of design. We had council come in, playground designers. We went out and audited playgrounds all around the city. Kids organised excursions, field trips to to actually see examples of what we were trying to create so that we could bring it back here. So it's it's messy is is the answer, I guess.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it it really is impressive. If someone hasn't seen yet, arbay38, right, on Twitter, you can go through, like, all of, Abe's media posts, and it's honestly amazing to see what true experiential education looks like, co created curriculum, with younger students doing some really cool stuff, which I think, I mean, in most districts is gonna look like worksheets. So it's pretty cool to see what can happen when you really give students the reins to your curriculum. So let's dive into then, how this then would relate to COVID nineteen 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 gonna happen. It seems like most districts in The United States are gonna remain closed for the rest of the school year. 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 can go outside and play, but is there a way that you could integrate it into a school curriculum?

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's a really good question. That's something we're giving a lot of thought to here. We still have another week of school left before we go on holidays for a few weeks, and then it's very up in the air about what happens next. This is where I would have loved to have thrown to Maria because this is her area of very much of expertise. I'm really interested in outdoor play. 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. How how do we go outside now? That's that's a really big question. I think it's probably more important now than ever. It's really interesting to me that that maybe the conversation is starting to shift as well, that that we're starting to, you know, really think about the the health and the well-being and the the mental health of kids, that outdoor education is a a huge huge part of that. So I don't necessarily have an answer for that. I'd be interested to hear what what other people, like Skylar, for instance. I'm I'm a big fan of what Skylar does. I'm really interested in in his school.

Speaker 1 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 a reimagining of physical education for young people, mostly adolescents, not like elementary school kids. I had walked in thinking like, oh, we'll we'll transition it to, like, calorie counting and like independent working out, like things that adults do, not realizing that that's actually probably not a good idea because the majority of adults that do that kind of stuff ultimately don't follow it. And he had brought up the fact that the goal of physical education should be to inspire students to realize that these things are fun and exciting for themselves, then they just connect them with the thing that is active and they end up doing it and that makes that's what makes them happy. So perhaps part of the, 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 wanna 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, 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. I'm not sure if that So I was, I just put it in the chat that I was trying to figure out how to unmute myself. I was, like, moving around the interface and because it's not like Zoom.

Speaker 3 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. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be for, you know, nine weeks or whatever is left. And what we're what our field naturalist has been talking about is figuring out ways to do to lead virtual field experiences. Like, she lives out in the woods, and she is willing to, like, basically do a Zoom call or Google Hangout on her phone and or record herself, one or the other, like, exploring things outside and then talking through things and, like, having kids either live connect with that or, you know, some asynchronously. 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 to take an actual break during this time, but that's one thing. And then the other the other idea that came to mind about finding things in their neighborhood that interest 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 qualitative monitoring, just, you know, journaling or or or sketching for the artistically inclined that are not me, or it can be more quantitative using Nature's Notebook through the USA National Phonology Network, which is a community science program that does you know, gathers data from all over the country and actually does science with it. But and my cat's jumping in my lap. But those are two things that immediately come to mind. But we haven't done a lot of planning yet, but we're we're definitely looking to to continue kids getting outside because it's obviously important at all age levels and for adults too. I mean, I I'm very grateful that I have a dog that's been forcing me to get outside every single day during this whole quarantine.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Dogs are being walked like dogs have never been walked before.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 For me, I think if if I'm gonna be locked down in a house with a three and a one year old for for the next few weeks, probably applying some of the things that that we learned and we looked at last year around creating opportunities for different types of play becomes really important. So for young kids, you know, creating spaces for, you know, imagination and fantasy play, for construction play, you know, special places for for that type of play to occur as well. Creating opportunities for for risk taking in the play is is a really big one too, like getting kids outside. We're about to, as I said before, introduce bikes and scooters into our playground. It's And making some people really nervous that that's gonna happen, but it feels like a bit of an extension of the home. So, you know, what risks can we actually bring back into our play was a big motivator for us here. Things like working with real tools, you know, speed, so heights, all the elements of of risky play. So creating space and time for kids to to enjoy that and getting outside while we still can, you know. So, Abe, do you see a place

Speaker 1 so hypothetically, if, you know, you don't see your students, and they're working remotely and they've been working on this project now for, I mean, practically the whole year, They've been building and co creating a space with you. What would you have your students do now if they're only able to, you know, see you online?

Speaker 2 Yeah. 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? Can we even transfer what we're doing here into the home? Can we continue to build? Can we continue to collaborate and connect? What does that look like? It seems like every year we have a day where kids just get it. It just clicks for them. And so we're ten weeks into our school year here. I kept about half of my my cohort from last year, which is amazing because I don't have to reinvent the wheel every year when that happens. Those kids, you know, they're not starting day one. They're starting day 181. So they just come in and go. And the other kids, you know, join the classroom and go, oh, okay. So this is how this works. And so on Friday, we we only had about half the class. We got a lot of kids working from home. But the ones that were here, we we didn't organize anything specifically for them. It was kind of like an extension of home day. They had tasks and things that they were working on and they just they got it. Like every kid was engaged in their project. We had kids spread out around the school and we were just here to support that learning. So I'm really hoping that now that they've got their teeth into the projects that we're working on this year, they can continue to take those on and build from that stuff at home. So what does that look like? I don't have the answers to that. I'd love to hear what other people are doing because the worksheets and the packets and the here's a bunch of websites, jump on and explore. That stuff's great if you're just siloing your learning. To be able to connect with each other and continue to do things that are building community or building place,

Speaker 1 that's the stuff that really matters to me. 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. Or as Martha said in chat, the 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, 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. I 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, 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. 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. 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? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And ideally, I think that's the the whole point of this. It's it's giving kids the skills and, you know, the belief that they that they can do projects like this at home, that they can change spaces and places. So that's a great question. I'll probably put that to the kids as well. Like, how do we transfer the skills that we're building here into your home? I know from a couple of students who've left me this year that 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. So for us here, identifying native plants that draw butterflies to them and planting them out, that's a small thing. Those kids took it home, but their neighborhood has become like a haven for butterflies. I think it has to be authentic for kids. It has to be contextual for them. So, you know, what do you have? What what are you hoping to have? And then working and moving towards that.

Speaker 4 Oh, hi. This is Tracy from New Orleans. How are you doing? Hi, Tracy. Good. How are you? Yeah. Have a lot of thoughts because in my graduate program, my experience was using the project approach. A professor wrote a book called The Project Approach. It was early childhood educationearly intervention for special education. So, it was teaching you not only how to work with children from ages birth to five, but with and without disabilities. So, the project approach is and I've made this comment before to Chris and Nick it's very aligned to progressive education. So, somehow, twenty plus years ago when I did my student teaching, we had all these wonderful practices for young children. We've even gotten away from that now because kindergarten is first grade boot camp, right? But anyway, my point is is that it's all about project based learning. It's the project approach. And so what we did is we started doing observations interacting with the children outside all day. We were outside with them like two or three hours of the day. We would listen and hear for their interest. 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. So we kind of noticed a theme among the like 25 kids that it was baking, and so we built a curriculum. Now you have to understand, these are kids that are like two, three, four, five, some of them have disabilities, so there is more direct instruction and facilitation per se, but their interests led the project. Right? It's so it was born from their interests, so that's their part of the co creation. And then we added literacy activities and built that out with them, and it went up I was in a summer institute, and then we had, like, a culminating activity where we baked things and invited the parents. Part of like the issue that I see right now is that my experience with ABA therapy, we do a lot of intervention. Video modeling is very big in the ABA field, And so the teacher either videotapes herself doing an activity or appear. So, obviously, appear is more preferential. And so then it could be anything that you want the student to do. So when you're speaking, I'm thinking about all the things that you could do to videotape your self and have that be the facilitation point for the learning. The issues are very obvious here. 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 gonna happen again. You can't say everything's off now. All bets are off in the world. You can't the predictability of life is unpredictable. So I see this as an opportunity to maybe we're scrambling right now, but we could use some of the, like, techniques from ABA, like video modeling and getting kids to model things and maybe even being proactive, having something lined up. 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. It's just that, do they have access to technology? If there's a project, do they have access to the materials? It's very that's why I don't think we can solve it right now because it's so comprehensive. But from what I see, all of these brilliant minds that are coming together right now, everybody can come up. I'm not a tech person, and anyone who follows me on Twitter laughs at me. I'm not a tech person. I'm a book person. But 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, you know, everything that you're doing at school, a garden, and you can, like, bridge that gap to home. So now we can really start to do hybrid learning, and I think that's something that can really be born from this.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I I I agree completely. I think it has to be authentic for me. 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 look different for 23 kids here, let alone, you know, in different places. So, you know, kids that don't have a backyard, kids that are living in a high rise. So what are the opportunities that present for kids and what does that look like? How are they getting outside? How are they engaging in that learning?

Speaker 4 Yeah. The questions, like, I feel like now we can, like, have a list of questions like you just said. So when you think of a scenario, list all out everything that you can think of. Like you said, they don't have a backyard. They don't have access to tech. 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, you know, we can all stay together as a community of learners and teachers, and we can build out for the next pause in our life. 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I've I've read a few times people talking about, hey. Don't don't waste a good crisis. So it's gonna be really interesting to see what change, what lasting change can can come from all this. I'm not gonna say I'm excited about the prospect of of tackling this, but but it is gonna be really interesting. I'm really interested in multi age learning. I don't think it's a new thing by any stretch. It goes back a long time, 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. We have single year levels of every grade. So I'm gonna 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 in the community. That's the stuff that really for me is the most important. I can throw content out there for days, for years worth of content, but keeping, you know, being community together, that that for me is gonna be the challenge.

Speaker 4 Yeah. 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. 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's crying, like the class comes together, but then all of a sudden when they're teenagers and they're beating the hell out of each other, then it it goes to another level. So I feel that multi age is that's what you do in early childhood. You know, early childhood education, especially special education, is like age ranges. So there's a lot to learn, and I am looking forward to it just because just to give you background, was in New Orleans during Katrina. We dropped the ball. We started doing all of these things fifteen years ago 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. We have 13 to 15 murders a week in New Orleans. We have less than a million people. It is a war zone. We did not get trauma therapy for our children. We did not get trauma therapy for our teachers. So all of these things that are happening, the people on the front lines, people who are more outspoken, we have to step up and we have to start advocating. Take one little piece and just move forward. But, you know, multi age learning, I mean, absolutely, I saw it work.

Speaker 2 I I love what you're saying about, early childhood as well. Like, mad props to to early childhood educators. Like, They're the real experts in play. I'm just a novice in that department. But our classroom, I feel like our class is closer aligned to kindergarten kids than it is to high school kids. You know, the way that they create spaces for kids to play, recognizing the different kinds of play that they can do. The way that they use portfolios and the way that they document learning, that's the stuff, you know, that that that we should be all trying to do. So I reckon we should be looking more more closely at early childhood than, yeah, than anything.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I recommend anybody getting project approach. I don't know if it's still available. I'll look into it, Nick and Chris. But, you know, that book is my professor, although I will say, she didn't really love The Tracemeister, but that's okay just because I'm so outspoken. But she did a great job of doing it, and, you know, we collected all this portfolio, and the parents were so joyful at the culminating event at the end of this summer. We gave him this huge portfolio of everything we had done and documented.

Speaker 1 Do you think that's better than a report card? You better believe it. And, Abe, the 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 kinda funny considering that that's what a lot of kids already do, especially younger kids, they play. But teachers don't feel comfortable with the idea that students are just going to, just start learning, just by going out and playing or giving, like, unstructured play or even semi structured play where, like, you give them a task, but then there's still not a lot direct teacher control. What advice would you give to educators who, not necessarily someone who's here because they they likely already agree with this mantra, but to someone here that needs to convince someone else that, hey, play based learning is important. Here's why you should really have question control. Play play is learning.

Speaker 2 My kids, that that was probably the the the number one message that we had to try and get across to to people last year. We created all kinds of opportunities for our kids to go out and present, and they did. They spoke to government. They spoke to district days, and really just pushing that message that play is learning. And I think we have to get better at looking at what is that learning that's actually going on when kids play. So for me, it can be challenging at times to create that time and space for kids to just play because people might walk through and go, those kids are just playing. There's no learning going on there. So we have to look beyond that to see what is the actual learning going on there. So when we created spaces, we didn't have construction spaces for our kids. We had a real lack of diversity. Heaps of hard court spaces and open grass spaces, but no real The project. A big population of students with disabilities. So creating spaces that kids were actually going be drawn to. And then knowing what to look for. So changing the way that we observe play, like oral language with the young kids. So when we created our mud kitchen, things like private speech. The kids, when they're making their mud pies and things, they're talking through their steps there. They're having those discussions about the play. Because good play is self directed. Kid has the opportunity to quit whenever they feel they want to. But it's organic. And so if we're not sharing and playing by the rules of the game and verbalizing that as we go, then, you know, the game doesn't work. So just just looking at things like private speech in in kids playing 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,

Speaker 3 but it can actually just happen naturally through play if we know what to look for. I was just gonna, add on to that about the the private conversation. I think that that's such a huge part of my what I do is just listen to kids, when they don't know that I'm listening. And that sounds creepy, but it's, you know, it's just it's it's cool. And I wrote a a one of my, like, first ever teacher blog post was about I drive the bus for our our field experiences when we take kids out and just, like, the 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 are just, like, laughing with each other or this kid is just totally worn out and asleep or I know this has been a really good day because everybody's asleep or everybody's laughing or singing or what like, whatever is going on or, you know, if there's an an issue between two kids that I can observe and then follow-up on later. Like, just being able to have that that observation of of, you know, teenagers being themselves is just so valuable.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I I love that you drive the bus.

Speaker 5 But, yeah, Skyler, it sounds like you drive the bus though, like, in a literal and, like, a metaphorical way. You know what I mean? Like, couldn't tell at first where you're going with that, whether you're saying, well, I kinda drive the bus, and then you're like, no. Literally, I'm driving the bus. No. If I if I had my wallet on me right now, I would show you CDL. I see. If, you know, plus that's who knows in economy that could be a boon for you too, know. That could be a bet. Yep. If if it's going sour. So so I I don't know, I've I've been kind of feeling snarky here in the last in the last couple days because, you know, things things like like Paul Kirchner's 10 deadly sins of education keep popping up in my in my feed. And Abe, I know that you've interacted with that a little bit too. So I didn't know I didn't know if you're aware that you're committing about half of the 10 deadly sins in getting kids involved in in playing and making and and learning by play. So I didn't know if you if you had a response because because I you talked a little bit about just, you know, wanting to maybe dig deeper into what kids are learning through play. But have you had a response to people who maybe look at that and just say that that is not a good use of time? I mean, I 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 to be explicit. Right? It seems to be like self self explanatory, self evident, I guess, the word I'm looking for. So so I can't imagine walking through that workshop that you're in and not getting that sense of awe, and that, you know, that that sense that the kids are building something special in their secret garden or everywhere else. How do you how do you convince people who, you know, might just be super skeptical that play is learning? What's what's the best way to tackle that?

Speaker 2 It's I think it's a real balancing act for for me here. We spent four weeks last year where we did not come in this classroom. So we we were outside for four weeks, and I was really nervous about how that was gonna be received because we spent probably six months planning all of our projects and talking about it and visiting places, you know, and and the conceptual stuff. But then we had to actually go out and do it. And so, 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. Mark Sonneman gave me a framework for looking at what do you want your learners to actually be when they leave. So the portrait of a learner. And we got together with parents, we got together with students, our entire staff, and we came up with 10 things that we thought this is actually what we want our kids to be when they leave us. And they were things like trustworthy, know, able to self regulate, having empathy for each other. It goes on. And that for me was almost like that's that's my permission to go out and do the thing that I need to do because, you know, there is there is my curriculum right there. So with the Australian curriculum, everything that we did, I can pull bits out and link it up curriculum wise. But to get outside and actually physically build spaces, that's different. We brought that inside this year. So we're still working outside and and prototyping and and building on that stuff. But to to bring that same concept inside to create spaces for kids to go and learn. You know? So we've got a studio now because I've got some kids who are just mad keen on music creation, green screen. And we didn't have any spaces for that. So we went, right. Well, that's one thing we've got to have right now. So creating those spaces. So to get back to your question, how how do you convince other people that it's not a waste of time? I think it has to be authentic and contextual for for you. I think you gotta know your stakeholders. And and and it's gotta come from there. It's gotta start and finish with with kids.

Speaker 5 So it it sounds too like so so what's interesting is that if I walked into, you know, like, your your maker space or anything else, what 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 and even, you know, a backlog going back to say, okay, well, what what what do kids want now that we don't have that we can add? So it's just that cumulative sort of impact too. So yeah. So it would be interesting to to to think that when people walk in there, they're seeing the results of all of the all of the things that are not explicit, you know. So that's that's interesting. So so maybe part of part of 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. And just as it is to say, hey, here's what kids did. Here's what kids made. Here's kids in action. So that that could be kind of the other half of of convincing people that it's not just turning kids loose and and saying, go do things. So that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I I think,

Speaker 6 like, even this year, you know, I'm a contract teacher. I'm year to year. I I don't know. This is not my space. This space belongs to kids. I I don't even know if I'll be here next year.

Speaker 2 Oh, the product. 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. They see the things that kids do. And it's like, oh, okay. So what amazing thing are you gonna be creating this year? Like, I have no idea. I literally don't plan this stuff. Like, it happens through the kids. So it has to be about the process, process over product. It's great that we have all this furniture that we've built and these spaces and stuff that we've built, but process is the thing that really matters. And then to come back to Chris' question, so what does that look like? How justify do the time that we're spending? We're not doing a really rigid, siloed curriculum framework. How do you justify that to to your stakeholders? Well, that's gonna look different for for everyone, I think. I'm in a primary school context. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I've got that. That's it, isn't it? If you're if you're in a 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 I I'm trying to, you know, draw some connections between your context, Abe, and like mine in Ankeny, Iowa. I feel like parents and stakeholders in my context would not be comfortable with that that kind of learning, and there's just, you know, I guess I could try to convince them of some things like that, but that would that would just be like oil and water. There wouldn't be that alignment there. So so that's that's really interesting. It's a it's a mindset change that from process to to outcomes.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It comes back to, you know, what what do we want school to be? So, you know, what's the purpose of school? So if you're entering that within your context and your stakeholders, then, you know, go for it. Like, find out what works for you. But gotta take risks. You know, we have to be agile. We do lots of prototyping here. So, you know, creating it, observing it, seeing how kids might or might not use the space. At the moment, I love that I've really become the middle guy. Like, kids are going over my head. They're they're taking, proposal stuff straight to our principal and going, you know they're putting their proposals together and and going and trying to raise money, trying to convince him that, you know, can we do these things? And, yeah. That that's a really exciting and interesting

Speaker 1 part of what we're doing here. 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. 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 together. So like putting together surveys, asking them literally face to face, like virtually like what we're doing right now, And then kind of guiding them through inspiration. So saying like, hey, you know, going outside isn't off the table. What are some things that you'd want to do outside? 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. Instead, just starting with the kid, talking to him, having that dialogue, finding ways to connect with them, making sure that you can actually hear from everyone because you might not be able to. And that really is the the troubleshooting part of things. It's just making sure that you hear students. If you don't, try and 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

Speaker 2 phone app, or maybe it's something else. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I guess if you're if you're looking for a a way to to begin, we just started with an audit of our playground. That's it. Simply put the question to them, how do we make our school a better place? That was our guiding question. We threw around a heap of ideas and we came back to play. Our playground, you know, is not great. It's it's old. That might be a little off track, but, you know, it's it's it's fantastic. It's amazing that we have created these opportunities for kids to own the learning for them to create these spaces. But we're one of the most underfunded schools, you know, in our country as far as capital works go. 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. And and the funding is just wrong. So while it's fantastic that the kids are doing all this stuff, it worries me a little bit that we had to do it. But that's a whole another story. But getting back to my point, we started with an audit. We looked at our playground. We went, well, what's missing? There's a lack of diversity out there. What don't we have? And the kids went out. It turned into an art project because then we had to look at mapping. We needed to design a map from bird's eye view. We had to get a sense of scale. Some kids went out and measured and worked out perimeters and whatever of the school scale drawings. But they actually looked at, well, okay, what do we need? And the kids worked that out. 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? And yeah. And then we went from there. So it's just starting with an order of what have you got? What do you need? And and going from there.

Speaker 1 Well, that I think that actually builds into the question that Mark is asking in chat, which is, the prototyping process. So once you have done the audit and you figured out, okay, here it is, what is what we need, How do you go through like testing it, evaluating it, ensuring that it's successful, that kind of stuff? A place making framework, which I have here.

Speaker 2 And it's just really simple. It's it's five steps. So it's defining your place and identifying your stakeholders. So, you know, that's really for us, that looked like just chatting to kids. So, you know, we collected a whole heap of data. We surveyed students. A couple of kids just love data. So, like, go figure. You know? They literally sat for, like, a day and just pulled this data apart. And when we talked to kids about, you know, what kind of spaces would you want, 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. So, like, well, okay. Are we wasting our time creating a space like that? 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. 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 gonna use it, just observing the way that they played, conversations with them. And, And they've decided that they need more water access there. They have to walk quite a long way to get the water for the mud. So we're looking at, okay, we have rainwater tanks here. So how do we connect them up? How we get that water down into those spaces? When it's 40 degrees here, getting misting sprays over the top of the 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 that are coming up with that stuff. Evaluating your spaces and identifying any issues. The vision for the place. So can you find an example of the space that already exists and how do you take that and bring it into your space? Short term experiments. So prototyping, a bit like we did with our day of play. You know, that was a big tick for our this kind of play is is possible, but in just short bursts. And then ongoing reevaluation and long term improvements. So, you know, making these places permanent.

Speaker 7 Hope that answers your question, Mark. No. I just wanted to jump in there. And, Abe, I'm I'm really excited to hear you talk about the your experience with outdoor play. And, please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but I'm thinking you're working with, probably 11 and 12 year olds. Yeah. That's right. So we are, you know, in my province, we're promoting that play based philosophy. Right now, we we implemented full day kindergarten in, probably about three years ago. And so we've been working with different grades, grade one and grade two, and trying to promote that play based philosophy. And I guess, you know, with with play based learning, some of the I there's some uncomfortableness with that term play. Some feel that, you know, given their own experience, that play is probably just, you know, frivolous. So trying to have them buy into that. And and I guess for us, we're we're, it's alright for teachers to feel vulnerable when trying to first implement that that process, that philosophy. And, so what we've we've started with is looking at, you know, what are you doing in your day that, you know, possibly could be linked to play based learning. So once they start thinking about that, then they're coming up with all these ideas. And then we try to move into, you know, the the play based. These are some things that you can do, but the emphasis on also on outdoor play. And we do have some reluctance there. We're in a province that has very harsh, winters, so, that is somewhat of a challenge. But 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, 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. So the 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. But also the teacher's gotta recognize when to stand back and let them take control of that. And I think that's some of the the issues that we're having, as well with some of the reluctance is, yeah, these are, yeah, these are kindergarten students. So, basically, when we're talking about, you know, our younger learners, some of them some teachers are reluctant to go too far with play based learning because we've got to cover this outcome or that outcome in the curriculum. But I think it's just giving up some of that control, and I think that's where some of that reluctance come in to to play there with with teachers. And, you know, and you did touch on one thing. Some teachers feel that they're being judged if their students are just playing or if they're outside playing, then, you know, I feel that, you know, some of them have made the comment that I don't know what parents are gonna say when they see that, or when other educators in the building, what are they going to say about that. So these are some of the issues that we've come up, you know, come up against, but I think it's so critical that we need it so much. Right?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think that for me comes back to that, you know, observation of learning. Like, what are you seeing when we're seeing kids actually play? What are we willing to sacrifice to move in that direction for the outdoor playing? Because that's spot on. Like, you've got to give up. You gotta be willing to sacrifice to make the time and space for this stuff to actually happen. So what are you willing to give up to get there? Or how can we transfer that learning to the outdoors? Something that I'm not great at that yet. It's something that I'm I'm trying to get better at is is is finding ways to take the the content of the curriculum and actually authentically, you know, get outside. Not just go outside because, you know, it's a novel thing to do, but actually meaningful ways to to do that. We've got a conservation park. I can see it out my window. Like, Antarctica used to meet the coastline down here. It's one of the most geologically significant beaches in Australia. And it's a fifteen minute walk from my classroom. And we barely get down there. And it just seems crazy to me that we're not getting into there and doing all of this connecting with our community. So that for us is an opportunity to get out. Again, it's gonna look different for for everyone's context.

Speaker 7 Yeah. And, like, we we have some teachers that have really taken them and ran with that philosophy. And, you know, within the classroom, like, play based learning has been such a huge part of kindergarten anyway. But that transition, like, some of the reluctance for outside and I I don't necessarily mean taking students out and having them in the in the, you know, swinging or on the seesaw or the teeter totter or or whatever, but actually outside, like, bringing the out the the classroom outside, you know, there's and I guess they're just trying to work through it and try to get a 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, I guess, vulnerability is heightened, because, you know, it's a it's a different ballgame for some of these teachers.

Speaker 1 Alright. So with our, few minutes that we have left, I I think that and and, Dennis, I think that's a really, it's an interesting point on I I think that's something that could be built upon this conversation is finding ways to effectively communicate, what the results are of what we do. I like, for example, showing those teachers what Abe is doing, in his classes. It really is amazing. I I think sometimes people look at the work of, like, what progressive educators do at the end and think that that is that that is, like, the summary. It well, 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. And just kind of seeing the fruits of your labor when it is when you do listen to students and what that means. And also just like the especially for play based learning for younger kids, the research is it's there are hundreds of years of research on, the importance of play for small children, especially like, imaginary based learning and social emotional well-being, that kind of stuff. With the few minutes that we have left, does anyone have any final questions for

Speaker 4 Abe? We're thinking about the word play, and that's what people are sort of struggling with, the word play. 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? Like, replacing play like to play with to create or another word?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Posy Salzburg talks about, talks about that. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but it talks about, you know, replacing play with, the fact that kids are experimenting. They're doing these short term experiments. I'll to I'll look it up and flick that flick that over to you, Tracy. But I I really like that. I like that analogy that, yeah, some people really do struggle with the idea that of play and that it's a waste of time when actually it's not. It's systematic, you know, and and it's engaging and authentic and, you know, that creation, the the flow,

Speaker 4 the the kids get into when when they're playing. You know? And it just feels so magical when you're in that moment. There's, like, nothing like it. It's like this joy that you feel that you just it's indescribable unless you're actually, you know, implementing it. It's a indescribable feeling.

Speaker 2 I think it's amazing. It it doesn't feel amazing. Our classroom, it doesn't feel that different to to most other classrooms. I think it's just maybe it's just a slightly different mindset. Like, if you walk through my classroom most days, it's gonna look like most years, six, seven classrooms in in South Australia. I think the the big difference is that, you know, we're we're getting to a point where it's it's more student directed than than teacher directed. So it's it's me stepping back and creating that time and space for kids to actually do this stuff. Because with our project, there's there's no way I could have micromanaged all of all of the stuff that happened last year. Like, it was it was crazy going during the third term holidays that we had going into that third term, I knew exactly how much work there was to to make our early quite grasp the amount of work that we were gonna have to do. But I couldn't micromanage that into being they had to own that. So they had to own the process leading up to it. So for me, it's that it's that stepping back and and creating time and space for the kids to actually get their head around it and drive drive this change. So I I think we're about to wrap things up, but there is one more question that we can take here really quick from Hey, Abe. Mark.

Speaker 6 Hey, Mark. Which I don't know, Mark. Hey. Long time listener, first time caller, Abe.

Speaker 2 Hey. I like your hat.

Speaker 6 Thanks. Yeah. My question for you is about risky play. We've talked a little bit about it, I know, in writing, but is there a space for that, or is there a context for that in your playground right now? Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 And and, again, that was one of the the things that really drove our project last year was where are the risks? So the kids in in our class, I think they calculated we spent, like, sixteen hundred hours in our playground across their their school life. Sixteen hundred hours out in our playground. And and all really we had was open spaces. We had that cookie cutter, you know, plastic and metal playground. 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, their seventh or eighth year in this playground? Risks just didn't didn't exist. And so then we have kids creating risks in unhealthy ways on on the the stuff that already existed. So how was what it was all about? So we looked at things like fire. You know? We had open campfires, and and we did some cooking. We cooked damper, you know, over a fire pit. That was one of the things that that Maria actually from Nature Play SA brought to our day of play, using knives and hammers and tools, you know, in an authentic way in the yard. So for my kids, that looks like building and actually creating. But where are the opportunities in the yard for for risk taking with with tools? Bikes and scooters that we're about to introduce like speed in the yard. You know, the risk assessment around that. Again, Nature Players, they have some really good resources, which I'll share with Chris around getting started with this stuff. So the risk benefits of this type of play. And I know our education department actually encourages this stuff. So for some reason, as teachers, we feel like, you know, in our schools, we're risk adverse, when actually we recognise the benefits of this on tackling things like overweight and obesity. Yeah. So creating risk is massive. Risk that is comfortable for kids, it's gonna look different for everyone. 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? You know? You've gotta let kids run with that and and learn to take risks by making

Speaker 6 yeah. Take risk by taking risks. So yeah. I agree. I mean, playgrounds for me are the standardized programming and assessment of outdoor play. And you structure it in a certain way. They can only do certain things with the equipment that's out there. It's I mean, you get what you what you put out there. Right? So those kids play in prescribed ways with those things, and they don't get to really explore what play means. Alright. So I I I actually think this conversation has gotten really interesting. Like there's a lot of things

Speaker 1 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, etcetera. 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, so that way you have access to it, plus we'll share out the recording, as well. Once again, Abe, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks to all of you for attending and speaking with us. I think this is a really good informative discussion.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Thank you very much for having me and, yeah, thanks to everyone for, you know, giving up their Saturday evening to have a chat.

Speaker 1 So it's I mean, honestly, at this point, Saturday evening just feels like every other day. So it's it's it's something. But but yeah. Seriously, guys, thanks for joining us, and we'll talk to you soon. Be on the lookout for some follow information. Have a good day. See you later.