I wasn’t always a play advocate. When I started teaching preschool in 2010, I had little to no previous experience with children. I babysat some in high school and that was the extent of my experience… I really didn’t want or even particularly love kids, but I needed a job and my friend who owned a daycare needed a teacher. So I pretended I really wanted to work with kids and got the job. It was hands-down the best decision I ever made. I fell in love instantly. I adored the sweetness, the cuddles, the undeniable love from the children. Something changed in my heart and I realized this was what I had been missing in my life.

Before long, I became determined to be the absolute best teacher possible. I attended some trainings, observed senior staff members, and worked hard to meticulously plan lessons.

I was insanely proud of my own progress. The parents and students loved me, I got compliments from the directors, and I had so much success in the classroom. I whipped out songs, stories, puppets, voices…I had my class of 18-24 month olds sitting still for an almost 10 minute circle time. They were learning shapes, colors, Spanish, letters. Boy was I impressed with myself. I swelled with pride when I had them show off their learning to the parents.

Soon though, I began to notice how much better free playtime went than my planned activities. (Of course, with 18-24 months we had much more free play than circle time or learning time!) During free play, the students would ask more questions, explore toys in so many different ways, use their imaginations to create extensive and detailed scenarios. They were completely engaged. To my surprise, they seemed to be learning more the less I tried to force lessons. Was it possible I was going about this all wrong?

I soon began to realize three very important things that shaped my thinking and changed my teaching.

What I was doing wasn’t teaching…it was training.

I was repeating what I wanted the kids to learn, using musical tricks and poems, and drilling names of shapes and colors into their little brains. I was training them to parrot back what I told them. They could tell me names of shapes on a piece of paper, but couldn’t recognize them in the real world. I wasn’t showing them how to make connections or explore…I wasn’t guiding them to new discoveries. I was training them with little tricks to impress the parents.

What they were doing wasn’t learning, it was memorizing.

Along with my first realization, I soon recognized that true learning went much deeper than what we were doing during circle time. When we were playing and they were asking their own questions…that’s when they were truly learning. Making connections, discovering new things, engaging in their own interests.

What they needed from me was someone to encourage their play.

The kids didn’t love me because I taught them how to count. They loved me because when I put away my flash cards and circle time materials, I sat on the floor and played with them. I listened to them and engaged in their play.

The parents didn’t love me because I taught their kids what a triangle was or how to sing the ABCs. They loved me because I loved their kids.

No longer able to ignore these three truths, I decided to do some research on the ideas I was forming. Sure enough, the research abounded – play wasn’t just for fun, it wasn’t just something that happened after we finished learning – it was how they learned.

I began refocusing how I taught. Circle time became a story, a song, and an open discussion. Play became my focus. Rather than planning out how I would structure my circle time, I focused on how to structure my classroom so the kids could find and choose the toys they wanted. Rather than finding ways to get them to rote repeat information, I focused on providing toys and activities that would push them to explore, imagine, create, connect, and question.

My journey to discovering play-based learning was one of listening to my own instincts, but as I discovered through research, it is a well-known, well-documented method. Since my early days at the preschool, I have studied, researched, and learned so much about the wonder that is play. I have tried to take it with me into public school, which isn’t always easy, and now I get to utilize it at home with my own child.

When I think back to those early days I shake my head at myself. I didn’t scar the kids for life, we still played, and still had fun. But had I known then what I know now, I would have been a better teacher-one who knows that facilitating play is far more important than ABCs and 123s.

Posted on: June 21, 2018, by : admin