Time to play. Time to throw caution to the window and try something new. Time to use duct tape and cardboard to build a prototype. Time to swing from the monkey bars while a friend counts how long you can hang in there. Time to pour sand through a sifter and explore what happens. Time to watch the clouds and see shapes in them.
Someone once said to me, many years ago, in the midst of an architecture unit, when kids were designing skyscrapers with cardboard, duct tape, and paint while researching how design impacts strength… “Oh, well, you know, the kids aren’t really doing actual work in your class.” Um. I know I didn’t respond. I had no idea how to respond.
Were they right?
Everything I knew about learning from my college training might be right… The students weren’t earning grades. My classroom was a mess of cardboard that looked like a box factory had exploded. I hadn’t copied one worksheet. I wasn’t even following my Harry Wong guide at this point. Was I even a teacher? They were even using a paint program on the computer to design their blueprints… It. Was. Fun. #panicmoment
I wish I had realized then what I realize now. It was true. They weren’t “doing work.” They were doing something far more important. Something far more meaningful than just doing things I told them to do to check off a box or earn a point. They were engaged in something we need more of in school… the art of play.
And in that play? It was the realest kind of learning that there is. The kind that happens when you give kids the time and the space to explore, discover, wonder, create, and build connections. Connections that cannot be forced through lecture, memorization, or doing stuff that doesn’t mean something to us. Things that cannot be tested. We need to give less answers and more time and space. And then we just might see that the “actual work” we’ve planned isn’t even where the learning lies.
