Trying Together focused on the theme of equity in play during its annual UnConference event on Monday, Oct. 14 at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.
Beyond the Playground: Advancing Racial Equity in Play featured two keynote speakers, four breakout sessions, and performances by the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center dancers.
Play as Early Childhood Liberatory Pedagogy
The day’s first keynote speech was “Play as Early Childhood Liberatory Pedagogy” by Dr. Denisha Jones.
Jones, who serves as the director of Defending the Early Years, noted that childhood is “under attack,” arguing that many reforms in state schools focus on future success, and not early childhood education. She added that early childhood teachers deserve autonomy and a living wage.
“Students go into environments that stifle learning from early childhood, instead focusing on standards, rigor, and testing,” Jones said. “There’s so much pressure on the early childhood community to prepare kids for the rigidity of public schooling.
Jones said there has been a lack of a national investment in young children and their families, adding that there’s not even a foundation to which changes could be proposed. To get free of the current system, Jones said educators must restore the link between high-quality and child development.
In theory, she said, the way to improve the system would be to trust children so that they can trust themselves, ensure that everything in early education is grounded in child development, and emphasize a focus on agency, play, and identity.
In practice, she said, educators should emphasize a child-driven curriculum, document liberated learning (which means to not just test what students know, but to document what they know by paying attention to the play in which they’re involved), and to address the elephant by not assuming that children cannot handle the oppressive forces they face in society.
“We’re being told it’s divisive to talk about race,” she said. “It shouldn’t take a racist encounter to talk about it. We need to give children the language to respond. We say to treat everyone equally. When they’re not treated equally, we don’t give them the tools to respond. Equity is not enough; we need liberation and to remove the barriers. The reality is that this is a highly unequal society.”
Jones said that children who are free to learn are driven by innate curiosity; self-directed through questioning; have time to tinker, build, and experiment; have sustained persistence; are trusted to take risks; and take part in collaboration.
She said that teachers who are free to teach go from teaching their students to survive to teaching them to thrive; utilize the power of observation; take part in nurturing relationships and take time to nurture development; follow a child-driven curriculum; and partner with parents to unleash potential in students.
Spreading Optimism
The event’s afternoon keynote speaker, Anthony (Ant) Toombs, senior guide and outreach specialist for Life is Good’s The Playmaker Project, talked about how to spread optimism among children.
“To combat trauma, we use the antidote of play,” he said. “We teach early childhood educators how to heal through play, we improve student-teacher relationships, reduce educator burnout, and better support the social-emotional health of kids and adults alike.”
In addition to in-person training, The Playmaker Project also offers fully online programs. Every graduate gets ongoing support through further access to coaching, events, and advanced trainings.
During his speech, Toombs incorporated games involving beach balls and paper-rock-scissors to emphasize the importance of play for all ages.
Toombs noted that there are three parts of the brain – the reptile brain (which focuses on survival), the limbic brain (which processes emotions and love), and the neomammalian brain, which focuses on such things as problem-solving and reasoning. He said that many children who have suffered adverse childhood experiences are stuck in the mode of the reptilian brain, making them hostile or aggressive.
“We have to figure out ways to quiet and nurture the snake brain, so that we can engage the limbic brain, which is all about connection,” he said. “Once you have a connection, then you can teach a child.”
He said the four key domains for a positive learning environment in which to grow the roots of optimism are joy, internal control (covering such elements as confidence and safety), active engagement (in other words, being present in the moment), and social connection.
Breakout Sessions
During the morning and afternoon, the UnConference held four breakout sessions on:
- Strategies to advocate for playful learning in early childhood (Trying Together’s Policy Team)
- An approach to prioritizing open-ended play in the classroom (HATCH Partners in Play)
- Risk in play (Trying Together)
- Race, identity, and the arts (Lakeisha Wolf)
- Parent LAB Play Day (Dr. Ari Brazier)
