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Where Structure And I Part Ways




This blog has become a place to share my thoughts—thoughts that others may or may not read, thoughts others may or may not care about, but thoughts that very much reflect my journey.

I started this blog after my discovery of 'play' and my original Number Agent approach back in 2016. Saying it like that, that I discovered play, makes it sound like something new. Of course, others, far more expert than I, had unearthed the importance of play long before I stumbled upon its magic. However, that is how professional journeys work; we come to things in our own space and time.

Before I started my posts, I considered myself structured. Our school was structured. Academic achievement was really important to me, and it drove what I did in my new entrant class. I very much believed children needed to be ready for school, and I was often loudly wondering what on earth my ECE colleagues were doing. Children in my new entrant class were whisked quickly into formal learning, assessed for their alphabet on day one, and swiftly provided with literacy and numeracy goals. They were often expected to work in silence, and play was something that would happen in the form of choosing.

I make myself sound like a tyrant, but I wasn't. In fact, my class was fun and engaging, with lots of energy and excitement, but it was very teacher-led.

Gradually, I came to see and appreciate the need for play and have posted many times about how it all started with oral language. Very quickly, my blog and my world became about play.

In 2019, I stumbled across structured literacy (for want of a better term) and my interest turned to how I could mould this with my dedication to play. Following in the footsteps of this learning came 'structured maths', and this blog became more of an exploration of evidence-based practice and the merging of two worlds: structured and explicit, with genuine free-range, child-led play.

Over the last few years, I have advocated that there can be a wonderful balance, but the last year in this country has me worried. The curriculum being imposed on us and the rhetoric being spouted has all become a bit too much. We are losing the balance. I am all for effective teacher practice. I understand the role of explicit teaching and very much 'get' the role of a knowledge-rich approach, but I worry that it is taking over by stealth, overwhelming us into submission, slowly squeezing out the room to play and once again causing us angst about 'acceleration' and levelled achievement.

I admit, even I, who advocates for play, have been guilty of getting bogged down and perhaps 'zombie-ified' by the constant achievement-based focus. Getting caught up in the whirlwind of expectation that reeks of National Standards.

A few weeks ago, I was tired, exhausted, ready to throw it all in—the closest I have ever gotten to just feeling plain beaten down. I even cried in the staffroom (not a great look for the principal, lol).

But, I went back to where it all began, with play. We have a world in desperate need of good people, and I believe a commitment to childhood allows us to work towards that far more than a commitment to a man-made construct of a curriculum and its levels.

There is no getting away from the things we have to attend to. It is important for whānau to know where their child is at and if they need more support, but it is also important to embrace the importance of childhood.

So, as I stood in front of my community during prize-giving week, I reaffirmed our commitment to childhood. As I wandered around the playground, this was only further affirmed for me. Three boys, three tyres, and a hill—that was all it took for me to realise that while I can remain committed to strong pedagogical approaches and best practice, I also know where I need to get off this bus for the good of my children, before it seeps into everything that we are and everything that we do.

I have found my stop, and right now, it feels really good. Childhood is important. We can maintain structured approaches, but we also must hold childhood above that. It must be the most important thing we honour and cherish, because if it isn't, nothing else really matters.






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