I ended my last entry like this: “. . . why do we make reading and writing such work for kids? How can we infuse the teaching of these skills with more spirit of play?”
What do I mean by “play”? Should kids act out the stories they read? Should we all just laugh and sing and clown around in classes? Should teachers set kids loose and grant, as if by royal decree, “freedom”?
The longer you look at it like this, of course, the sillier the idea gets. My granddaughters came up with the restaurant idea on their own, but we can’t expect and depend on students in our classes coming up with educational play ideas all on their own consistently enough to justify it as a strategy. That isn’t realistic.
But I’m not thinking of play is quite these terms anyway. I’m thinking of play in terms of “delight.” To delight means to give pleasure and joy.
Allow me to digress.
Many years ago I lived in State College, Pennsylvania. My young son lived a hundred miles away with my ex-wife. Every other weekend I drove down a long, beautiful valley, into another, and then over the Allegheny Escarpment to pick him up for a visit.
I drove a VW Bug for some of those years, a ’55 Chevy pick-up for others. Both were baby blue, but that’s not the point. Neither had a working radio or tape deck. This is long before CDs. Our entertainment was to talk.
“Okay,” Christopher would say as soon as he had settled in and we were on the road. “Start talking.”
“What about?” came my standard rejoiner.
He might say “Abraham Lincoln” or “The Great Depression” or any other historical subject that interested him at the moment. Later, as he got older, he’d sometimes lead us into discussions of world religions.
Well, I’d start to talk, and he would ask questions, and that was how we passed the time driving through that beautiful countryside the four seasons of those years. Being with him and sharing those interests delighted me. It brought me pleasure. There is nothing so joyful as connecting deeply with someone you love.
I like to think that my delight infected Chris with a love of those matters that he asked me to talk about. He’s now a high school social studies teacher, and because he has a deep love for his subject I believe he lights up, delights, in his work.
To feel delight is to feel the spirit of play. Delight is by nature warm. Kids respond to warmth. They are drawn to it. They bond to it. Do a read aloud of Walk Two Moons or another book that you resonate to, lead an open ended discussion of it, and watch what happens if you simply treat it as something that has value to you—not as sacred text leading to salvation!
For a great example of a teacher who has done a beautiful job of this, check out “Ron’s Read Alongs” in the archives of this blog.
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