Rethinking Learning
conversations about the future of teaching and learning
Barbara Bray
be creative, innovate, take risks, unlearn to learn
Oakland, CA

Sign In/Register
RSS Subscribe
Add to any service

Recent Posts:


Show All Posts


« April 2024 »
SuMoTuWeThFrSa
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930 


Show Archives:


Popular Categories:

5 followers


Follow

Bring Play back into the Classroom
By Barbara Bray    March 19, 2009 -- 11:16 AM

Something really got to me today. I received this report on Play Disappearing from the Kindergarten Classroom. What happened? We ask our children to grow up way too fast and then life comes hurdling toward them full speed. They have to be able to test well. Why? Who’s test?

A good friend of mine who was a Kindergarten teacher quit - retired after 25 years. She couldn’t stand spending hours on hours teaching children how to fill in a bubble on the test sheet. She had to cut down on reading time, cut down on play time, cut down on singing, dancing, art. I even think this is starting to happen in pre-school, at home with toddlers. The push to get into college has made us frantic and causing our young ones to stress out.

Let’s go back to teaching how to play again. Think about that. When you know how to play, socialize, work in a team, enjoy learning, you may even want to be a learner. We have so many kids dropping out of school especially in our urban school districts. The pressure to compete with others, to not be a failure is too big now. Let’s save our children and rethink how to assess learning.

Use observation, individual education plans, collect artifacts of their learning, and involve them and their parents or guardians in the design of their learning.  My last post was about setting up collaborative projects. I’ve seen kindergarteners garden, draw, and work with cross-age buddies. We cannot afford to lose any more kids.

Check out MIT's Creative Play for Kindergarteners. Think this site is good for all ages. Need to show Scratch more. Planning to create a tip soon and show how you can embed your projects. Let's get more projects, kids, creativity, and play into My eCoach.

Categories: "Learning" "Pbl" "Play" "Kindergarten" "Scratch" "Creativity"



Bookmark and Share




Comments: Add New Comments
By Linda George      March 19, 2009 -- 12:37 PM
Wonderful post! I love teaching "Scratch" and try to do it as often as possible! It has so much potential!
Reply to Linda George
  


Share your comment:
Your name: