A few weekends ago, Hidden Brain had a show about play and the importance of independence in real children's play. The guest, Peter Gray, posits that children need to have the opportunity to test things out for themselves and problem solve without adult intervention. He believes that play with the risk of real failure accelerates children's learning and in the end makes them more capable and confident. His ideas are by no means novel even if couched in more studies. The adventure playground movement championed by Marjory Allen and others after World War II held that children thrive when they are allowed to play freely.*
Gray speaks at some length about anthropological studies of cultures who have had little contact with modern technology and schooling concepts. Often, children are left on their own in multi-age groups for the day. Their "play" often mirrors the work of the adults and they gain competence in these adult tasks through a long process of trial and error.
As usually happens in spring, I found myself thinking about Village. The theme's official name is "The Game of Village" and playfulness lies at its core. One thing that struck me in the Hidden Brain interview was Gray's assertion that adults need to get out of the way in children's play. They need to allow kids to experiment and flounder. Failure is not only an option, it is a necessity in learning and growing.
During Village, all of the teachers play alongside the students. We are the "commissioners" and part of the federal government but we also are a part of the villages. We don't anticipate problems and offer solutions before they happen, instead, we let the game play out. We may share our opinions or historical context at times but we don't step in to fix things.
Uncomfortable things can happen. Many years ago, two peeps of the same gender wanted to marry and the town had serious and hard conversations about what marriage should be in Village (this was well before the Supreme Court or Minnesota tackled the subject.) We've had counterfeiting issues. We've had corruption. We've had property disputes. We've had struggles over if there should be limits on speech -- what if something is mean? what if it's not true? Just one day in this year and one of the villages was trying to figure out if a town should be able to control who immigrates into it. (Details on each of these can be found in the archives of the Village blog.)
The students don't always have a perfect solution at first...but then neither do we as adults. And the hope of Village, at least as I understand it: by mucking about, trying new things, failing sometimes and trying again, students will not only learn about our world but see ways to make it better.
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* My favorite quote of Marjory Allen's is, "Better a broken bone than a broken spirit." Perhaps a better t-shirt slogan than insurance policy rider...