Be a Kid Again

When I look at my daily schedule and think about everything I have to cram in there for these fourth graders, I feel so guilty. My students get fifteen minutes of recess, and since we’re in Pennsylvania a lot of times that recess ends up being spent indoors. It is so important that students of the 21st century are given time to play. Unstructured play encourages creativity instead of conformity and innovation instead of imitation (Gopnik, 2016). If we want our students to be learning and ready for the future with these necessary skills, we need to allow students to construct their own knowledge through authentic learning experiences.

Students also need to be able to work through boredom; adults are not their personal entertainers. A few days ago, I was at the Apple Store waiting for my husband’s phone to be prepared. While waiting, I was sitting on a bouncy ball playing a game of golf on an iPad out for customers to try. Two young girls were also sitting at the table. They would open a game, play for ten seconds, and then say “I’m bored.” I wanted to interject and say, “You are in a store of one of the most famous electronic brands with hundreds of devices at your fingertips, and you have the audacity to say you are bored?” I kept that thought to myself of course, but it is frustrating to see adults coddle to children’s boredom and act as their entertainers. They had the tool of our culture (Gray, 2015) in their hands, but they went to their parents to rescue them.

Informal learning opportunities like recess and iPad time are just as crucial, if not more, than formal learning that students receive in the structured classroom setting. Educators need to recognize the importance of informal learning and give students opportunities to combine the informal with the formal (Toikkanen, 2016). Children need to play and learn informally, and adults do as well. Adults need time for child-like exploration, creativity, and boredom just like children. In designing professional learning for educators, this is important to consider. Professional learning should be collaborative, active, and natural, giving educators time to learn both formally and informally through strategies like “walk and talk” (McCammon, 2015). Educators, like children, need to be given the opportunity to experience self-directed learning and COVA.

Teach the teachers like you teach the students. Let them play, talk, and move. Bring out the child in them to bring out the learning.