issue 10winter 2011

The Playground as a Laboratory

Playscapes: Thoughtful Redesign

Parkour

p 16p 2 p 8

Sticky Curriculum

2 Play is...

Creative Fusion

8 Playscapes: Thoughtful Redesign From the Ground Up

What Works

12 The Playground as a Laboratory

People Who Inspire Us

16 Interview with Tyson Cecka and Rafe Kelley, founders of Parkour Visions

In Each Issue

1 Greetings from Paula

20 Spark Plugs

22 UCDS Mission Statement

In this Issue

TM

BY TEACHERS FOR TEACHERS™

Spark is published by

University Child Development School.

Head of SchoolPaula Smith

Assistant Head of SchoolTeacher Education Center Director Melissa Chittenden

Publication DesignJack Forman

Contributing WritersDeb Chickadel, Ellen Cottrell,Melinda Deal, Jessica Garrick,Nancy Kiefer, Rick Kirst,Jill Marlow, Katharine Sjoberg,Paula Smith

Contributing EditorsJean Bailey, Diane Chickadel,Melissa Chittenden, Jack Forman, Betty Greene, Stephen Harrison, Julie Kalmus, Angie Manning Goodwill, Dan Pronovost, Shanthi Raghu, Natasha Rodgers, Abby Sandberg, Paula Smith, Kai Toh, Jesse Vohs

PhotographyStephen Harrison,UCDS Faculty and Staff

For submission information, please contact Shanthi Raghu atshanthir@ucds.org.The editor reserves the right to edit and select all materials.

© 2011 University Child Development School. All rights reserved.

Can you recall a time...when work and play were exactly the same; a time when what you had to do and what you were passionate about merged completely? While we adults will probably have to stop and think for a moment, this question is completely foreign to a young child. Children simply default to play when trying to make sense of the world and use every provocation as the raw material for their course of study.

The words we would use to describe a child at play are similar to those that psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi would use to describe flow, a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand.1 Csikszentmihályi found that people are most happy when operating in a state of flow; they are intrinsically motivated and are so involved in the process of learning or performing that nothing else matters.2 When watching a child play, we marvel at her intense sense of purpose and her willingness to tackle a task that is completely outside of her skill set. A child does not consider that, to achieve a difficult goal, she may fail hundreds of times over a period of months and even years.

If play is the work of childhood, what do children learn through play that can be useful in school? Gather a small group of first graders together and provide them with some space, time and minimal materials and you will witness play that has all the elements of a first class learning environment. Whether engaging in imaginative play with a complex storyline and cast of characters, a game that has been crafted by the participants complete with elaborate rules,

a collaborative building project that calls for skillful deployment of materials, or an athletic challenge children set for themselves, children at play have an intense level of motivation and engagement. In the world of play that happens outside the classroom we find children taking initiative and engaging in authentic problem solving using creativity, collaboration, and negotiation.

Patrick F. Bassett, President of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), describes the emerging consensus among pundits in the worlds of business, non-profits, and academia about the critical skills that will be needed “for individuals and for the collective culture and economy to succeed in the 21st Century.”3 These skills, designated by Bassett as the Five Cs + One, are “critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, character, and… cosmopolitanism (cross-cultural competency).”4 Do they sound familiar?

How do you teach creativity?If our students are to be literate in the skills of the 21st Century, we as educators will have to answer this question. Teaching for creativity will most certainly mean a less linear curriculum than one needed to teach the basic skills and discreet units of knowledge measured by our current standardized tests. Children who are learning to solve problems, synthesize information, and be flexible, adaptable, and independent require a type of practice more similar to play than the experience gained in a typical classroom. At UCDS, our teachers have developed a number of strategies and techniques for incorporating the collaborative, creative, and open-ended features of play into the daily classroom routine:

We use a narrative to give the curriculum a context that children care about. Although this may seem obvious in Language Arts, where children can learn to read and write through inspiration from excellent children’s books, storytellers, and theater performances, at UCDS, we carry narrative into math as well. A series of problems called Math Vitamins may track a story or follow characters inspired by a class project or a shared book read aloud. The children come alive as they derive a mathematical solution to help the characters out of a tight spot. Narrative is also essential glue that helps children understand and remember key content in social studies, science, music, art, and foreign language. Children, like all of us, are wired to listen and perceive the world through stories.

We create individualized stretches or supports for students that are designed to keep a child working at the edge of his/her ability. Developed by a team of teachers at each grade level, these modifications to a project may include a challenge that requires a more advanced level of understanding or that sharpens the production skills of the student. As a result, children in our classrooms are leaning forward, highly engaged, and tenacious, just as a person in flow.

We teach children to make their thinking visible to others. Children as early as preschool learn to discuss books in literature circles and receive feedback from classmates as they develop a piece of writing. Each child builds a model with manipulatives to derive and share their solution in math. In every subject area, students confer with classmates as they work: sharing ideas and strategy, and discussing any roadblock they have encountered. Students overhear the teacher thinking out loud while coaching their peers. We expect that children will learn a great deal from each other, not only by observing successful strategies, but also by sharing what did not work.

We make time for children to collaborate to develop solutions when issues arise in their classroom and the school community and to reflect as they consider what they might change. In Class Meeting and All-School Meeting, which they run, children learn to ask questions, to build on other’s thinking, and to modify a plan so that it can work for everyone. We make time for children to practice the skills they will need to be active members of our democracy and to build confidence in their ability to change the world.

As educators and researchers around the world work to retool our schools for the 21st Century, we should be looking carefully at the way children play to learn. Our goal should be to harness every child’s need to explore challenging questions and to create meaning.

1 “Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,” TedxUChicago, last accessed Nov. 29, 2011, http://www.tedxuchicago.com/speakers/csikszentmihalyi.

2 Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. 1st Ed. (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008); “Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

on Flow”, (Lecture, Ted Talks, October 2008), last accessed Nov. 29, 2011, http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html.

3 You can learn more about the lists of 21st Century learning skills in Patrick Bassett’s latest blog posting. See, Patrick Bassett, “The Five Cs + One,” Basset

Blog, 2011/11 (blog), Nov. 23, 2011, last accessed Nov. 29, 2011, http://www.nais.org/about/index.cfm?ItemNumber=147270.

4 Id.

ThePower

of

Paula SmithHead of School

Sticky Curriculum

2

Play is embedded throughout the curriculum at UCDS. It’s the magic and challenge that captivates even the youngest of students. It’s the story.

3Continued >

By Deb Chickadel,Ellen Cottrell

& Nancy Kiefer

Play is often talked about as

if it were a relief from serious

learning. But for children play is

serious learning. Play is really

the work of childhood.

-Fred Rogers

4

building andpretending has providedthem the opportunity to study thetexture of sand, finding out which objects work best to dig the holes as well as why some holes work and others cave in. What are students learning about cooperation when they choose words that include or exclude others, or share the space on stage? What happens when there is not enough sharing, and how are they learning to negotiate and take turns?

As our faculty considered these questions and investigated our classroom and playground environments, exciting conversations about play arose. Sure, we thought, we value play, but where do we begin to define what that means and what benefits we believe our students get from play? The National Institute for Play (NIFP) has developed a classification system for forms of play, backed by scientific research, that encompassing all forms of play, spanning from the earliest of attunement play between baby and caregiver, all the way through more complex forms, such as creative, social and transformative play.

Aha! Suddenly, we had a lensthrough which to examine each part of our students’ day. On an instinctual

...and the first through fifth graders are involved in the work of playing. To the right three girls are leaping in the air, galloping, and then stopping to drink from an imaginary horse trough. A pirate ship has evidently emerged in the sand box area, second graders are digging holes in which to bury treasure, while, next to them, a few fourth and fifth graders are putting on a play using the steps as a theatrical stage. Groups of kids are sliding, slipping, and slithering on the grass. Some are walking together in twos and threes; others are sitting under shrubs or building something from the stones. A team of basketball players of all ages is zigzagging around the court. Passing a group of kids sitting on the big rock, a careful observer may overhear a story about a dinosaur and its baby. Later, the dinosaur has gone and a giant has arrived in its place and is getting ready (in the guise of a first grader) to climb up on the monkey bars to rule the world. What are the girls learning about gravity when they leap? What do the pirates learn regarding the engineering aspects of digging holes in the sand? Busily

level, we’ve always thought of our curriculum as “playful”. While visiting UCDS, Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code, commented on our approach to learning, referring to it as “game-like”. In the context of the NIFP’s taxonomy, it gave us some hooks on which to hang our proverbial curricular hats. It was exciting to think about “play” with some common language beyond the standard “what-happens-in-the-40-minutes-during-recess” kind.

Play is embedded throughout the curriculum at UCDS. It’s the magic and challenge that captivates even the youngest of students. It’s the story. The math manipulatives used to dem-onstrate understanding. The imagina-tion called upon to generate Writer’s Workshop stories. The opportunity to invent and create something brand new. It’s the spark that ignites the fire in both kids and teachers, mak-ing learning meaningful and creating ownership. Challenges are posited right at the edge of creativity, making them impossible to resist.

It’s a sunnyrecess on theplayground...

December 01, 2011

Wednesday, October 5, 2011: Kaleidoscopes- Prisms-

Put on your chef hats because Rosie and Bailey have invited some guests over for soup!

Use your calculations from yesterday to find out how many diced veggie bits you

had in one portion of soup. Then, see one of your head chefs to

find out how many servings you will need to make.

5

A glimpse into an early elementary classroom during Math Vitamin®1 reveals this playfulness. On this day, students are puzzling through how many 10-bean bowls they can make from their ladle-full of Granny Torrelli’s red kidney beans. “Are these real beans?” one student dubiously asks another, “because I’ve had real beans before and they don’t look like this. They’re too hard.” She taps one gently on her tooth as her classmate says he isn’t sure but “don’t they look funny snuggled up in the bowl” he has drawn on his paper. Meanwhile, two tablemates excitedly count to “get to 100!” by combining their bean collections. “Granny Torrelli will be able to make so many bowls of soup with our beans! I think we have at least 100, maybe even 1000!”

“Chair Announcement!”a voice bellows across the classroom. Everyone instantly quiets and turns their gaze to the student upon a chair. “10 + 10 + 10 + 3 = 33 beans. It makes three big bowls and one baby bowl.” Celebratory fist pumps fly through the air accompanied by an impassioned chorus of “woos” and howls. The announcer’s face breaks into a wide grin. Just as quickly as the room quieted, the lively energy returns as students explore number, place value and skip counting through the characters of their current read-aloud

book, Sharon Creech’s Granny Torrelli Makes Soup.

More than oneform of play takes place at Math Vitamin. Across grade-levels at Math Vitamin, kids are hooked through what the NIFP refers to as object play, using math manipulatives to solve problems while also developing spatial sense and fostering richer circuitry in the brain. It’s also just plain fun to build with blocks or shapes, using them to invent a brand-new solution to a mathematical dilemma. This transformative play—generating new ideas—produces an electrifying effect, one that students wish to replicate over and over again. Read-aloud books also enhance the Math Vitamin storylines. The NIFP describes this as narrative play, allowing children to use their imaginations while interacting with and often helping out characters with which they have grown very attached. From Pre-kindergartners whipping up bean soup with Granny Torrelli to elementary students investigating super powers through Matthew Cody’s Powerless, storytelling is a form of play that transcends all ages.

1 Kirst, Rick and Morse, Gretchen, “Math Vitamin”,

Spark #4 (Spring 2008), p. 2-7

December 01, 2011

Mamma mia! Granny made a new soup from her homeland...Tuscan Bean Soup!

Come on over and take a healthy scoop of beans from the pot. If each bowl of soup holds 10 beans, how many bowls can you make out of your scoop?

Mamma mia! Granny made a new soup from her homeland!

Come on over to the pot and take a healthy ladleful of beans. If each

bowl of soup holds 10 beans, how many bowls can you make out of

your scoop?

Build, draw and record your results.Have fun, cooks!

Now serving...

December 01, 2011

Ciao! Good morning! Today is Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The pasta was 'perfecto' yesterday! Today Rosie and

Granny are making lasagna and the noodles have just come out of the boiling pasta pot in different

lengths. The lasagna pan is exactly 20 centimeters (cm) long.

How many different combinations of noodle pieces fit into this longer

pan?

Kaleidoscopes begin with: WORD

Prisms begin with: MATH VITAMINEarly Elementary Math Vitamins (right) bring Sharon Creech’s Granny

Torrelli Makes Soup (above) to life. Students playfully explore the math.

Continued >

The Soup-erMathematicians!

6

Kids crowd the rug at the end of the day in an elementary classroom to listen to the unfolding saga of super heroes, super powers, and super villains as their teacher reads aloud from Matthew Cody’s Powerless (above left). The students have discovered some kids in the town of Noble’s Green have special abilities. Teachers capitalize on this appealing idea by having each of the students determine their own special super power. They notice what is on the outside by playing with their photographic self-portraits using computer programs, Comic Life and Photo Booth, during Technology class. With further self-reflection, kids identify what special qualities they possess not only on the outside but also the inside. Through writing and reading, sharing and creating, students celebrate their own individual powers.

A series of Friday afternoons evolve into an exhilarating collection of explorations and investigations focused on the fun uncovered during these overtly curricular moments. Classrooms open to the free flow of students as they begin to dig deep into their powers of flight, sight, matter, and might. In one space, students crowd the tables filled with collections of papers in a variety of colors and sizes, and other tools, like scissors, paper clips and

sticks, to begin designing and constructing super power flying machines. As completed planes begin to emerge, the energy releases to the hallway where test flights begin. “Did you see that loop?” “WOW!” As the first flights soar, friends cheer each twist and turn. Redesigns improve the trajectory of the flight. Down the hall kids sit huddled over secret messages being penned in invisible ink. Playful giggles erupt as writers and readers uncover the hidden messages. A matter-defying substance is being discovered in yet another classroom. “How does this Ooblek move like this?” “What is it made of?” Queries from questioning minds sound out loud as students investigate and play with a doughy substance that seems to have a mind of its own.

December 01, 2011

Kapow!We havesuperpowers!

Elementary students playfully live out the themes in their Read Aloud book, Matthew Cody’s Powerless (top) in a

multitude of ways: mathematically (above right), technologically (middle)

and artistically (bottom).

7

NIFP’s classification of play • Attunement play - eye contact between a caregiver and infant that invokes a response from the infant and an exchange with the caregiver where the right cerebral cortex is attuned in both.

• Body play and movement - exploratory body movements, rhythmic speech (moving vocal cords), locomotor and rotational activity

• Object play - playing with all types of objects

• Social play - From the simplest romp and wrestling of young animals to the most jocular and complex banter of close friends:

Play and belonging: the urge to play with others and be accepted

Rough and tumble: shown to be necessary for the development and maintenance of social awareness, cooperation, fairness and altruism

Celebratory: Includes birthday parties, concerts, sporting events, getting together with a group of people to celebrate an achievement or milestone

• Imaginative and pretend play - The ability of the child to create their own sense of their mind and that of others

• Storytelling and narrative play - Identified as the unit of human intelligibility.

• Transformation, creative and integrative play - Accessing fantasy play to transcend the reality of our ordinary lives and in the process germinate new ideas and then shape and reshape them.

Step right up to the three-ring circus!These playful investigations resulting from core curricular components stretch students’ thinking and understanding to new places. Moving through classroom spaces and devoting time to exploring topics related to the work they have done in math, reading, and writing generates excitement and motivation to continue learning. Likewise, in the upper elementary grades (fourth and fifth grades), teachers incorporated the school-wide theme, Vision, through play with optical illusion, slight of hand and trompe l’oiel. Puzzling through Math Vitamins to prepare a circus tent with banners and fringe, students toyed with problems in geometry, logic, scale, and fractional relationships. Imagining themselves under their newly constructed Big Top and donning top hats, boas, derbies, stripes and capes, students paired to create and perfect their “shticks” and tricks. Several months into the project, the circus has dimension with performers and a space in which to play. Guided by research about circus arts and student discoveries along the way, the project is evolving as it goes. Writing projects have begun to further enrich their experiences.

The National Institute for Play describes social play as complex and to include subsets like celebratory play and play and belonging. The students in all of these grade levels celebrate their belonging to a close group of peers involved in the work of play.

As Stuart Brown the founder of NIFP says, “Learning about self-movement structures an individual’s knowledge of the world—it is a way of knowing, and we actually, through movement and play, think in motion.” 1 Some scientists who study play consider it an important aspect of neurological growth and development, creating flexible and supple brains. In the view of teachers and students, whether on the playground or in the classroom, playful and active curriculum stretches minds, builds deeper understandings, and opens up a motivation and desire to keep growing and knowing.

1 “Play Science - the Patterns of Play”, National Institute For Play, last accessed Nov 23, 2011, http://www.nifplay.org/states_play.html.

Fourth and fifth graders invent sideshow personas and team performances to work out the themes of the circus in play.

In Conclusion...

8

Creative Fusion

PLAYSCAPES:thoughtful redesignfrom the ground up

By Melinda Deal and Jill Marlow

9

Getting InspiredGathered around a conference table, a group of teachers brainstormed potential topics to further investigate. As members of the year’s Experienced Teacher Cohort, they were about to embark upon a year of professional development and service to the broader school community centered on a self-selected group topic.1 The energy in the room escalated as ideas emerged around movement and play and how they influence children’s development. Further inspired by the year’s school-wide theme2, Design, and the two-year plan to remodel the playground, the group enthusiastically and unanimously chose their focus for the year — PLAY.

Beginning with a three-day retreat led by Assistant Head of UCDS, Melissa Chittenden, and Head of Billings Middle School, Ted Kalmus, the Cohort embarked upon a series of research projects, discussions and activities to help evolve their ideas and questions around play. From discussing National Institute of Play articles defining the traits of play to learning new skills themselves; how to Moonwalk and testing out our parkour moves with local experts, the Cohort was fully immersed in the idea of play. Armed with a variety of inspirational experiences from the retreat, this small group of teachers was ready to bring the topic of play to the larger school community.

Drawing from salient experiences during the retreat, the Cohort led the entire faculty in activities to inspire them and elicit their ideas about play. Illustrations from Roxaboxen by Alice Mclerron (a picture book depicting the imaginative worlds children can create from simple

objects and their own creativity) set the stage for the faculty to form small groups in which they shared their most memorable personal histories of play. A few themes of play began to emerge from these conversations: independence, risk-taking, and imagination emerged throughout the groups. To thoroughly immerse themselves in the spirit of play, the faculty watched parkour videos and split into teams to design and test their own parkour obstacle courses. The only parameters were that designs had to include elements of over, through, under, and up. Teachers jumped over tables, rolled through a wall of mats, slid under arches, and gracefully (and not so gracefully) stepped up on tilting chairs. Many laughs and a few sore muscles later, teachers were sent away with the assignment of observing UCDS students at play.

Looking DeeperNext, the Cohort went into research mode and began reading about theories of play and playground design, visiting and looking at pictures of other playgrounds, and taking a close look at play on the current school playground. Pictures and video provided a broader perspective of how the current playground was being used and helped to answer some questions such as: What spaces are being over and under-utilized? What can we use differently? What are the traffic patterns? What types of play are missing? We realized the ultimate question that had to be answered before any decisions could be made about the design of the playground was: What do we value in play? This was a question the entire faculty needed to weigh in on.

1 Herland, Meg and Watkins, Betsy, “The Experienced Teachers Cohort”, Spark #8 (Fall 2010), p. 10-11

2 Herland, Meg and Morrison, Katie, “Forming Ideas: A Journey Through a Year of Theme,” Spark #5 (Fall 2008), p. 2-7.

Teachers play on unlikely surfaces (top) and photograph inspirational scenes to consider

playground design from many perspectives (middle). We visualized how these ideas could

work in our current playscapes (below).

Continued >

10

The innovative process began with a discussion of the aphorism form follows function. Keeping this phrase in mind, the Cohort asked their colleagues to brainstorm answers to the question, what do we value in play? The responses were varied: “imagination, social interactions, sliding, digging, building, creating, risk-taking, problem-solving, team sports, interacting with nature…” The list grew quickly. The plan was to categorize the ideas and reach consensus about which were most important. The discussion was enthusiastic and broad reaching, as teachers energetically described the impact of play they saw everyday on the playground and play that our space currently did not support at that time. Writing all ideas on chart paper, members of the Cohort facilitated this discussion and found it important to keep the focus of the discussion on the broader values, such as “collaboration” more than tangible play activities and equipment, like “soccer” or “climbing wall”. It was valuable to elicit the vision of the entire faculty, given that we would eventually have to make some tough choices to get the most out of our limited square footage. To end the brainstorming session and begin prioritizing the list, faculty voted on their top values in play.

Armed with new input, the next Cohort meeting was spent organizing the ideas and assessing the priorities as expressed by the larger faculty. Cutting out each word and physically sorting them into categories proved to be the most useful. In the end there were three different prioritized lists: Activities such as “digging,” “climbing,” and “throwing;” space and materials such as “a stage area” and “trees and water;” and finally, the Cohort identified six

concepts that truly represented over-arching values-- “diversity/flexibility,” “collaboration,” “exploration,” “problem solving,” “risk taking,” and “socialization.” Interestingly, the descriptor with most votes overall was the pair of words “diversity/flexibility.” For the faculty, this signified that whatever was designed should have multiple uses and elicit a variety of play from children of different ages and interests.

At this stage in the process, it was time to seek the ideas of the consumers—the students. In a year when Design was a school-wide curricular theme, students were doing a lot of envisioning and reinventing. In Technology classes they focused on the engineering and modeling processes of a variety of objects from flashlights and toys to 3D geometric prisms. Taking some of this class time, students in first through fifth grade transferred the skills and ideas they had been using to design their dream playground. For them this meant dream big, get their ideas all down on paper, and explain their ideas with sketches, labels, and drawings. Of course, when students learned that there really were going to be playground renovations on the horizon, their enthusiasm was unbridled. Some sketched outlandish or impossible dream ideas, such as a pool with live dolphins. Others spent time sketching exceedingly practical possibilities, including safety considerations such as height restrictions and harnesses for certain features. Many children showed an interest in how current spaces could be used more inventively and how new design elements would affect social dynamics. Students’ brainstorms were listed, categorized and tallied by grade level as part of the Cohort’s idea-gathering research.

Faculty members identify types of play activites, shared values and incorporate student sugges-tions to rethink playspaces.

11

The next step in the process was to share the prioritized results with the faculty and give them a chance to really play with the playground. Given an architect’s blueprint and an aerial photo of the current playground space and keeping the group values generated in the previous meeting in mind, teachers met by grade level groups to sketch and label all of their best ideas. Each grade-level group presented their playground makeover to the larger faculty, and ideas were blended and embellished. The Cohort met with the sketches in hand and fused them into an overall plan. As the conceptual ideas and form began to take shape, it was helpful to create a paper mock-up of the vision on top of the scaled architect’s drawing. Adding three-dimensional hills and colored paper labels allowed Cohort members to see how changes in elevation and surface material would blend and flow. This allowed them to experiment with moving features around. It looked a lot like adult play!

Enlargingthe ScopeSharing the playground mock-up, student sketches, and faculty generated values, the Cohort extended the conversation to the parent community. Parents were invited to meet with Cohort members to learn about the playground design process. Just as each group new to the conversation had before them, parents left feeling excited about the endeavor and were eager to contribute. The parent-run auction committee continued to creatively shared playground developments with the entire parent community to promote excitement for a new playground, which would be funded by the proceeds from two

consecutive annual auctions. Ready to share the values and ideas of the entire community—faculty, staff, students and parents—the Cohort met with architect, Don Carlson, the mastermind behind the innovative design of UCDS’ Early Elementary building. Don absorbed all the ideas gathered thus far, and used his expertise in design to beautifully encompass them in a new blueprint for the playground. Referring to the current expanse of asphalt and the playground’s double use as a parking lot (a necessary function that would still need to be included in the new design), Don brought to life the transformation of the space “from parking lot to play park”. The remodel of the playground would take place in two phases guided by our shared values for play. Phase one would include a new sandbox, sport court, and netting. The more extensive Phase two would include such elements as dispersing trees throughout the “park”, installing a turf field, adding a stream to an existing rock bed, and replacing the large play structure with more separate multi-functional spaces that would will include some play equipment pieces. The creativity that Don infused into the process fueled the excitement in the air.

In ReflectionWith phase one complete and phase two of the grand design still underway, teachers share how rewarding they find a walk through the playground during a busy recess time—stopping and watching students actively engaged in many types of play that demonstrate the school-wide values cataloged a year and a half ago. A new sport court and sandbox led to a wider range of students putting the values of collaboration, risk-taking, problem-solving, and socialization

into action. The more narrow age and gender groups that formerly gravitated to the sandbox and sports areas were suddenly broadened, and boys and girls of all age groups were utilizing the new spaces. These new attractions also helped to spread students out on the playground so the space feels less crowded. In addition, the more defined spaces helped to avoid foot traffic interfering with games. Teachers see evidence of this at student-led All-School Meeting, where students often discuss playground issues.3 Since the initial playground changes have been made, there have been far fewer discussions about how to share the playground space, providing opportunities to discuss different topics.

Many of the physical changes that have taken place, and will continue during phase two of the playground remodel, were made possible through funding from the auction. There was also an important change that took place without spending a single penny. By looking at the traits of play from many perspectives, faculty members also changed their thinking about play and how the available space is used. They re-evaluated longstanding rules such as not climbing up the slide or playing with the rocks and sticks in the garden in light of newly identified shared values. Simple changes such as trimming foliage, adjusting supervision, and re-evaluating rules opened up spaces that had previously been closed or under-utilized. Whether making an investment in physically renovating a play space or simply adapting ways of thinking, focusing change through shared values lead to valuable change where it was most important: the daily experience and growth of students.

3Chickadel, Diane; Foley, Susan and Garrick, David, “Building Consensus:

Creating Class and All School Meetings,” Spark #3 (Fall 2007), p. 2-7.

What Works

12

the playgroundas a laboratory

By Jessica Garrickand Rick Kirst

We often look at

13

We often look at the playground as a laboratory where students can practice their social skills and test out new activities and behaviors as they interact with each other. This seemingly free and unstructured time gives students the opportunity to establish their own rules as they run, throw, jump, dance, act, create games, build structures and work together on teams playing tag, capture the flag, basketball, kickball, or soccer.

This sounds like a typical recess…but there are some guiding components that create this “seemingly unstructured” play. At UCDS, the play that students engage in at recess is as important as the academic work that they do in the classrooms. To this end, each teacher has multiple opportunities throughout the week to observe and

support the students during recess. The teachers’ role goes beyond the typical playground responsibilities of monitoring for safety situations or enforcing rules. Here, teachers focus great attention on closely observing the peer interactions, group dynamics and activity choices of our students, and then discuss what they see with their colleagues in a variety of formal and informal meetings following each recess. In addition to this daily collegial communication, we have student-led Class and All-School Meeting forums that develop the student’s sense of ownership and civic responsibility. Among the many topics students discuss at these meetings are: what it means to include and exclude classmates in games, whether older students “play down” their skills when younger students join a game of basketball, whether creative games

requiring props justify students to pick leaves off of bushes, and what group game schedule maximizes the limited space of daily recess.

Every member of the faculty and staff at UCDS is a part of each student’s life in the classroom and on the playground. We constantly observe and communicate with each other about the different forms of play that occur at recess, how the students are interacting with one another, and in what ways they are engaging (or not) in activities and problem solving. With so many shared eyes on our students, all teachers are able to facilitate scenarios and activities that create and extend play at UCDS. With these scenarios in action, students participate in situations where they have to test the

Students are coached to build community that transcends the classroom.

Continued >

14

classes at each grade level, we create opportunities for students to interact with a variety of new faces and have varied social interactions.

Parallel to the teacher’s role in relation to play at UCDS, we strive to build the students perspective into our recess endeavors as well. Developing a student community that provides ownership, responsibility and authentic decision-making opportunities is a school imperative. One avenue that students and teachers put in place to solve recess (and other) issues that arise is Class Meeting. This daily meeting is a student-lead forum for discussing pertinent situations that affect everyone in a classroom environment at UCDS. While playground activities are not the only topic that students bring to the daily agenda, these topics often receive plenty of

waters and try something new both physically and social/emotionally. This is important because trying and persevering through something “tricky” not only develops new skills, but also leads to increased self-confidence, tenacity and resilience. We work to provide these opportunities on the playground as well as inside the classroom. Daily informal follow-up conversations with the classroom teachers, students and teaching teams are standard following each recess.

Other means of sharing observations are the lunchtime Staffing Meetings. One day each week, all teachers at a given level are available to meet during lunch recess and gather together with the school’s Learning Specialist. Topics include discussions about specific children, their social-emotional interactions, and plans to help them

develop strategies for dealing with problems teachers anticipate may occur in the independent setting of the playground. Students then receive coaching about how to branch out and make new friends, try new activities, learn to include others, and develop sportsmanship. These weekly meetings give teachers time not only to talk as a group about what they see and design plans for individual students, but also to create a school wide dialogue and deepen our program continuity.

We recognize that a greater community exists beyond each classroom or grade level. In order to maintain a healthy balance or mix of students, the arrangement of classrooms that share the lunch or playground changes every two months. Through careful scheduling, a balance of older and younger students, and mixture of

The Structure Behind“Free Play”

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s

airtime. Students chair these meetings and teachers help keep the minutes and make suggestions as needed.

In addition to the daily Class Meetings, play related topics are often discussed at the weekly All-School Meeting. Each class sends a representative (usually their current Chairperson) to convey their class’s input and ideas to this group. Once students in All-School Meeting have thoroughly discussed a topic, made a decision and planned how that decision will be implemented, it is written into the UCDS Constitution. By electing representatives or choosing to serve as a representative, students understand that they are responsible citizens of a larger community and that sharing their perspectives is an important aspect of their role as such.

We devote a great deal of time to the daily Class Meetings and weekly All- School Meetings. For us, an important step in developing civic-minded thinkers is creating opportunities for students to have authentic authority in their environment and experience the responsibility that comes with that. These opportunities for problem solving, decision-making, and building consensus are the foundation for the student’s ownership over what is happening on the playground each day. The fact that the students themselves have discussed the outcomes they want to experience on the playground informs their play at recess. For a more detailed account of Class and All-School Meetings, see Spark issue # 3, titled Building Consensus.1

Guided by an underlying infrastructure built by the faculty, students experience success and a sense of ownership when tackling the dynamic and exciting aspects of independent play. Teacher designed physical and social stretches support students during recess. Together, students and teachers generate the messy, yet magical learning environment that is the UCDS playground.

1Chickadel, Diane; Foley, Susan and Garrick, David,

“Building Consensus: Creating Class and All School Meetings,” Spark #3 (Fall 2007), p. 2-7.

Students gather together to represent their classrooms and collaborate on plans for their community.

Students share experiences, consider ideas and discuss problems in regular Class Meetings (right). Some topics are resolved in the classroom and others are brought to All-School Meeting by the class’ Representative.

Students at each level are coached to explore new friendships and activites each time they play. As they play collaboratively, students are encouraged to reflect about their experiences and share ideas and strategies with their peers.

ClassMeeting

All-School Meeting

Stepping Out

People WhoInspire Us

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Through his work as a professional stuntman and commercial actor while traveling around the world, Tyson Cecka’s love of parkour is evident. He has starred at the World Stunt Awards at Paramount Studios and in a K-Swiss television commercial with tennis pro Anna Kournikova. He was granted a Mary Gates Leadership Endowment for parkour through the University of Washington and used the funds to launch a non-profit training program.

In the fall of 2009 the UCDS Experienced Teacher Cohort met with Tyson Cecka and Rafe Kelley, founders of Parkour Visions, to talk about movement and play. Our experience working with them inspired faculty-wide discussions about play at UCDS. We caught up with Tyson and Rafe in their new training facility in Seattle. What follows are excerpts from our conversation.

Spark: What is parkour?

Rafe: The way I like to describe parkour is as a discipline to develop the ability to overcome obstacles using your body and the ability to develop yourself through overcoming these obstacles. Parkour involves a set of skills you use and a set of physical qualities that you develop. You can run, jump, climb over anything. But it is also about the mental characteristics that you develop through the physical activity. Parkour is about being able to overcome fear, about being able to focus, about being able to learn to imagine things — to be creative with your space.

Spark: What is the history of parkour? Where did it start?

Tyson: Parkour started in the 1990s in a small city in France called Lisses. A group of young kids and teenagers just started playing around in their outdoor environment, mimicking what their fathers as firefighters were doing in obstacle course setups. They were coming up with ways to

train themselves to overcome big mental challenges or to be able to achieve feats of strength. This started coalescing into what later became known as parkour — obstacle courses within your environment.

Rafe: It all comes back to this idea: kids play by running, jumping and climbing. Kids grow up and get to the point where they are supposed to stop this kind of play, only to realize that they don’t want to.

Tyson: There are a lot of adults who tell us that, after a certain point in childhood when the comments of “Stop climbing on that!” or “Don’t do that” have set in, they don’t go climb trees for fun anymore or they don’t balance on curbs on their way to work like kids will naturally do.

An interview with Tyson Cecka and Rafe Kelley,founders of Parkour Visions

Continued >

By Katharine Sjoberg

UCDS parent, John Neilson loved ideas; those he found in literature and those he gained through a deep appreciation of world culture, math, science, art, music, philosophy and physical excellence.

In 1999, at the age of thirty-eight, John lost a hard fought battle against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In honor of John’s life, The Neilson Endowment Fund was created. Through the Teacher Education Center at UCDS, we use this endowment to create and share programs that offer children access to big ideas.

John was an inspiration to us in life and we dedicate this, ‘People Who Inspire Us’ section to him. 17

Parkour Vision co-founders Tyson Cecka (left) and Rafe Kelley take a momentary break in their gym before demonstrating their skills.

Parkour is a way for a lot of people to bring that back. The people who are the best at parkour are the ones who never stopped climbing and balancing from when they were kids.

Spark: We talked a lot about the role that teachers and adults have in censoring play after the Experienced Teacher Cohort worked with you in the park. Our kids had been jumping over picnic tables and balancing on objects that we thought were inappropriate, so as the adults we said, “No, get off the picnic table — that’s for sitting.” After working with you, we talked as a faculty about rules we put in place and why we need to give consideration to the fact that jumping over or balancing on obstacles are natural things for kids to do.

Rafe: I think it’s sad that there’s been this trend towards limiting what children are allowed to do in play. No running in play areas! You can’t run because it’s concrete. You can run over there in the grass, but you can’t run on the concrete. That’s dangerous.

Spark: A couple years ago we installed on the playground what we call the “Grassy Knoll”. It’s not really grass, but has artificial turf. It’s not very high, but gives the kids a little elevation over the flat cement. It is a popular place on the playground for rolling, jumping and wrestling. The students figured out that the turf is made from a resin that they can surf on when it gets wet!

Rafe: Children are amazing at being able to find ways to play in their environment. It inspires us, and we try to be like that!

Spark: Who started Parkour Visions?

Rafe: We founded Parkour Visions together. Parkour Visions is a non-profit. So we don’t own it, but we provide the primary direction for it. We have classes for kids starting at 5 years old but are looking to expand into the pre-school age group as well.

Tyson: For kids coming into the program, we want to give them something they can train the rest

of their lives. We hope to be able to introduce parkour to kids in such a way that they understand how to safely progress in the sport and they do not just do it for ten to twenty years and then burn out. This is the same at any other age. Your sustainability in the sport just depends on what your goals are. If you approach parkour as something that you want to integrate into the rest of your life and keep doing it, people of any age can benefit from it.

Spark: Is there an age cap?

Tyson: Right now people see parkour as this extreme thing in movies and video games. Our goal is to show people that this is something that everyone across the board can benefit from. It just has to be approached in the right way.

Rafe: If you can jump ten feet or just two it doesn’t matter. You can still work on overcoming obstacles, improving your capacity to move and expanding how well you understand your body.

Spark: Tell us about your new space.

Tyson: The gym is definitely our greatest accomplishment so far, not because it’s the largest project we’ve undertaken or the most expensive, but because it’s something the entire community has come together to actually build. This project is incredibly exciting because this place continues to change as the community around it grows. Everything in this space is constantly moved or tweaked or changed to fit the constantly adaptive parkour world. We had our grand opening last weekend. This space is a good four times as big as our last space, and next year we will knock down that wall and get a full 10,000 square feet.

Rafe: We’ll add a rock wall, expand the scaffolding and change the structure a bit. Also we’re looking at adding

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some mats for some acrobatics, a springboard and some space for flip training.

Spark: You talked about overcoming fears and the ability to know what your body is capable of. How do you instill that as part of your parkour classes?

Tyson: Fear generally is a part of parkour no matter what level you are entering at. There is going to be some element of fear for everyone. Fear is more present for some people than others. A lot of the fears that we have to approach and deal with in parkour are irrational fears. We can do something from here to here, but if we move to a different spot, that same jump can lead to a fear response, even though it is the exact same thing. We build our curriculum in a very progressive way, making sure it can always adapt up and down to suit the level of the student and what they are currently capable of doing, with the intention of always pushing that a little bit and riding that uncomfortable state of ‘slightly afraid of something’ so that the student can continue to improve and improve and improve.

Spark: Your philosophy on overcoming obstacles and pushing individual limits is so interesting because it is almost identical to the experience we want students at UCDS to benefit from. Each individual child has an academic or social stretch created for him or her within each activity of the day. We try to create an experience of disequilibrium, as working through such an experience leads to perseverance, self-confidence and resilience. During that moment of stretch, the student starts to get that feeling of – “Aha! I can do it! They believed in me, and I can do it.”

Rafe: That point of being stretched is what we are trying to find. That’s a lot of what parkour is about – trying to find a situation where the technique and what you are asking of yourself is just a bit beyond what you’ve done before.

To learn more about parkour and

Parkour Visions, visit parkourvisions.org.

To view Tyson and Rafe in action, please visit

the UCDS Vimeo page at vimeo.com/ucds.

Spark: Even as the Experienced Teacher Cohort group of 10 worked through their parkour challenge, they all had different ways to approach each obstacle.

Rafe: People, even people who are very capable, do things very differently. Given the same obstacles, there are lots of different ways to approach them.

Tyson: Parkour is very different from gymnastics or ballet in that way. Instead of being judged on how well you perform the aesthetics of a move, parkour is about how you get over this thing in a way that works for your body. It’s what makes it adaptable for everyone.

Spark: You’ve done commercials, consulted on movies and more. What are your most memorable parkour projects?

Tyson: We love working with schools. Parkour is something we want to see in all schools and all parks. If parkour is approached correctly and people understand what it is about and how to get into it and start, it can have a tremendous impact in their lives.

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.Shop Class as SoulcraftAn Inquiry Into the Value of Work

On both economic and psychological grounds, Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a “knowledge worker,” based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing, the work of the hand from that of the mind. Crawford shows us how such a partition, which began a century ago with the assembly line, degrades work for those on both sides of the divide. A wholly original debut, Shop Class as Soulcraft offers a passionate call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.

Excerpted from http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/

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Featured Reading

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.SHINEUsing Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People

Dr. Hallowell combines new research into brain science with what we know about performance management to offer a proven process for managers to get the best from their teams and their people. Dr. Hallowell introduces what he calls, “the Cycle of Excellence” – a five-step plan that draws on his own work of helping people to overcome their problems to become more productive in everyday life.

Excerpted from http://www.shinewithdrhallowell.com/

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Spark Plugs

Cathy N. DavidsonNow You See ItHow the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform The Way We Live, Work and Learn

Using cutting-edge research on the brain, she shows how “attention blindness” has produced one of our society’s greatest challenges: while we’ve all acknowledged the great changes of the digital age, most of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century. Davidson introduces us to visionaries whose groundbreaking ideas—from schools with curriculums built around video games to companies that train workers using virtual environments—will open the doors to new ways of working and learning. A lively hybrid of Thomas Friedman and Normal Doidge, Now You See It is a refreshingly optimistic argument for a bold embrace of our connected, collaborative future.

Excerpted from http://www.cathydavidson.com/

Vivian Gussin PaleyA Child’s WorkThe Importance of Fantasy Play

A Child’s Work goes inside classrooms around the globe to explore the stunningly original language of children in their role-playing and storytelling. Drawing from their own words, Paley examines how this natural mode of learning allows children to construct meaning in their worlds, meaning that carries through into their adult lives. Proof that play is the work of children, this compelling and enchanting book will inspire and instruct teachers and parents as well as point to a fundamental misdirection in today’s educational programs and strategies.

Excerpted fromhttp://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3617303.html

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University Child Development School is centered around

the lives of children and is dedicated to the development

of their intellect and character. We actively encourage,

and the school everywhere reflects, the process of joyful

discovery that is central to meaningful and responsible

learning. Teaching is individualized and responsive to the

talents of each student, and the curriculum is rigorous and

integrates the concepts and skills embedded within the

major disciplines. Our students are chosen for their promise

of intellect and character and are selected from a cross-

section of the community. Our faculty members are leaders

in their fields, supported in advancing their studies and

encouraged to share their knowledge widely.

In pursuit of these ideals, and in recognition of obligations

beyond the school itself, we strive to be an innovative

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UCDS Board of Trustees

OfficersKate Marks, ChairJanet Donelson, Vice ChairGreg Headrick, TreasurerJulie West Prentice, Secretary

Members at LargeHoward BurtonMichelle GoldbergSteve HollomonCaroline ProbstPeggy RinneEric SandersonJeff TaradayFaye TomlinsonKobi Yamada

Ex-Officio MembersPaula Smith, Head of SchoolDavid Brannon-Cirone, Parent Association PresidentJennifer Vary, Faculty Representative