The Rookery

This year, one of our goals as a staff is to examine play at Prairie Creek. In particular, we are interested in woods play. How should teachers support woods play? How and when should we intervene? How much do we let students work things out for themselves? What should be the values of woods play? These are tricky questions, and as a staff we will have a year-long conversation that includes book clubs, guest speakers, and passionate discussions.

I want to get the Robins involved in this discussion, too. Last week, I introduced a new discussion format that I have used in my classes at Carleton. It's called "Agree, Disagree, Not Sure". A statement is made, and the participants in the discussion find a spot on the line that corresponds to their level of agreement or disagreement with the statement. If they are not sure, they stand in the  middle. There are many ways to facilitate the discussion, but the way I did it last week was to call on students one at a time and ask them to speak briefly as to their position on the line. Students are welcome to move along the line as they change their minds or come to a firmer stance on the statement.

The Robins loved this format. I had intended only to try one statement, but they wanted to tackle a second, so we threw out the schedule and dove in a second time. I was so impressed by the seriousness of the students' participation. They spoke eloquently. Some staked out their positions and stayed put, but the majority moved back and forth as they listened to their classmates. Some moved from one extreme end of the line to the other. Many students made direct connections to statements their classmates had made. 

The statements we discussed were:

• Everyone who wants to play in the woods should get the same number of sticks.
• Because it's tricky to ensure that stick sharing in the woods is fair, the teachers should be in charge of it.

For the second statement, Naomi facilitated and I participated. I started on the extreme agree end of the line and raised my hand to speak. After making as forceful an argument as I could, I then moved to the extreme disagree end and waited my turn to speak there, again making the most forceful argument I could. This is the beauty of this format–if the statements are carefully written, there are forceful arguments to be made on both sides, and the students have to stretch to understand the issue more deeply and think more carefully about where they stand. Please ask your child to tell you about our discussions. I plan to find some time to discuss more statements in this format this week. If you get a chance, discuss the statements below with your child; that will enable him/her to be even better prepared to participate in our next agree/disagree session.

• "You can't say you can't play" is a good rule that should be enforced by teachers at Prairie Creek.
• When one student is rejected by a group of others at recess, it is the group that is wrong and must change, not the individual student.

(These statements are inspired by my current reread of Vivian Paley's powerful book "You Can't Say You Can't Play".)  Post by Cathy Oehmke, originally posted to Robin's Egg Blue