Dear Families,
Finding Joy & Releasing Purpose
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands,
to do without head,
to listen and not speak,
to understand without joy.
~Loris Malaguzzi
As educators, we often speak of play as “the work of the child.” While this is an accurate and important description in its emphasis on the extent to which play serves a critical purpose for children, well beyond what may be apparent to the observer, it also situates play within a very narrow set of values. When we say that play is important because it is a form of work, we communicate an unspoken belief that time is only well spent when it is spent engaging in a concerted, goal oriented task.
This morning, I walked into a classroom in the midst of a Friday freeze dance party. The children were clearly all teetering between “productive” fun and all out, unbridled silliness. Group dancing was turning into puppy like pile-ups on the rug, and giggles were just beginning to spread with the contagion that every teacher knows signals a tipping point in classroom management, when it will soon become nearly impossible to regain the focus of the group. More often than not, even in a progressive, play based setting, we cut these moments off in the interest of maintaining order. And, of course, this is appropriate much of the time, as we aim for the hum of engaged, purposeful activity in the classroom, which we know most readily facilitates learning and positive collaboration. This is in fact one of the most frequent compliments I hear when touring other educators around our school—that our classrooms feel deeply child centered without feeling chaotic or over stimulating. It takes tremendous teacher skill in setting expectations, attending to the classroom environment, and nurturing of self-regulation and community to establish this calm tone within a setting that intentionally gives over significant agency to children.
And yet, I was struck this morning by the vital importance of allowing ourselves to embrace moments of abandon from time to time. For while it is essential for children to learn to tolerate and rebound from frustration, and while it is our primary job to create environments in which children are constantly learning and growing, the moments that truly cement community and foster the relationships and the sense of motivation that facilitate learning are often these moments of abandon, in which we feel a sense of deep joy with no apparent purpose. The feeling of pure joy and relief that we all experience when we find ourselves laughing uncontrollably, particularly if we are laughing with friends, fuels us in everything else that we do. It is a reminder that sometimes when we allow ourselves to let go, even briefly, of the pressures of specific goals and ambitions, we are actually reconnected to the deeper purpose that feels most central to our identity.
The play expert, Jill Vialet, says:
“Play matters because it gives us a brief respite from the tyranny of apparent purpose. Play matters because it compels us to choose, to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘I care.’ And in doing that we better come to know ourselves. Play matters because people matter. It reminds us of our interdependence and to really see other people, and in turn to be really and truly seen.”
It is true that not every moment of life or learning is joyful and that the ability to rebound from challenge is a central lesson. It is also true that focus and intentionality are critical components of learning. But when we put the seriousness of grit and ambition above all else and find value only in activities that clearly lead to marked outcomes, we separate the head, the body, and the heart, and we run the risk of forgetting why we are working at all. Moments of pure joy are worth embracing, even when there is no apparent purpose other than pleasure and connection. Joy is the hint of gold in the mud that remind us of who we are and what we have been searching for all along.
Shabbat shalom,
Alicia