Re: Process and Beyond!

From: Lorie Conn Stultz
Email: lorie.stultz@nl.edu
Date: June 05, 2008

Comments

Hi Keith and others: My name is Lorie, and I am currently playing with adults after almost 30 years of playing with children. I have purposefully used the word "playing" because I believe that if something is not fun for me, I probably won't do it well. Background: I started as a preschool music teacher back in the early 80's, teaching a method called Orff-Schulwerk. 20th Century composer Carl Orff began this method for teaching music literacy to very young children, and it is totally process oriented. Therefore, my foundation in process over product is strong. I have had many experiences since then, and now work with adults as adjunct faculty at NLU in the Early Childhood Dept., as well as training directors and teachers through the IL Trainers Network.

So, I loved the idea that ADD/ADHD is "attractability to something that seems more important or significant" instead of being distracted from what you are doing. I have always considered myself to be a "multi-tasker", but learned in a Keith Pentz training that the brain actually can not do two things at one time, so what we are actually doing is switching back and forth quickly between our tasks. I think I identified myself as a multi-tasker because it sounded better than my having ADD, which they hadn't had a label for when I was a child. But, I feel completely in touch with being attracted away from something toward something else that seems more interesting, important, or whatever, at the time. Children should be able to cultivate this gift and learn how to use it to their advantage, instead of being drugged into a state of quiet. Sorry, another discussion topic.

Now, on to the question at hand. First, during my travels from center to center as an ECERS-R assessor, I came to prefer the term choice-time for children rather than "free-play" because the process of planning by teachers for this time is better dealt with as choice-time. It's a mind set, I think, that teachers feel they don't have to plan anything for free-play. As to what or how to plan, what I encourage is that teachers give children things that they like to do.

As adults, we know that when we do something we dread doing, we just do it to get it over with and gain little benefit from it, other than having completed it. Learning for children is the same way. If they have to sit and do something that the teacher is making them do, they may do it, but what will they gain from it? If there are ample materials for children to choose from, they will engage and learn.

I could go into some specifics, but I've already written a book here, so the best advice I can give teachers is to keep things simple. Every day stuff - dirt from outside (maybe even some worms in it) for the science area - or water in the water table engages them every time, every type of collage material you can think of for the art table, for teacher-directed activities, small group projects like turning boxes into a car or airplane during a transportation theme - but whatever you do, make it fun. Make it interesting. Make EVERY area interesting, so children can be attracted to something else, then maybe come back to finish play in their first-choice area. And, the hardest thing for teachers - LET GO of control. Give the children some reigns. That's my best advice.